A Harvard Medical School professor, Dr. Blumenthal, revealed the likelihood of a physician using a particular drug company’s brand of medicine in exchange for free gifts. Those gifts could lead doctors to prescribe brand-name drugs, when less expensive generic versions may be just as effective. Should these gifts influence doctors who prescribe medications, especially those to pregant women?

Here are some examples of how the gift system works. A medical student walked into the office of a medical practice and found food, trinkets, pens and coffee mugs being handed out to the whole office staff, courtesy of Merck & Co. The physician who was the number one prescriber of Vioxx in his entire region that year, was ‘awarded’ a pair of Philadelphia Eagles season tickets. Vioxx’s party ended with the painkiller getting yanked from the market because it could cause heart problems. Investigations revealed that Merck marketers had misled physicians, wrongly suggesting that Vioxx was better for the heart than other pain relievers, even after research suggested possible dangers. See Stephen Cha’s article, These Gifts Are Bad for Our Health http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072202220.html

A professor of social medicine, David J. Rothman, at Columbia University Medical Center opines that $13,000 per physician is spent annually by drug companies in their effective marketing tactics aimed at getting physicians to do what each drug company wants - to prescribe their product. See the article by Ceci Connolly, Distance sought Between Doctors and Drug Industry http://www.biopsychiatry.com/bigpharma/doctors-drugcompanies.html