Bureau Recommends: Big pharma pay $220m to medics to promote products
The Bureau recommends a report by ProPublica into payments by pharmaceutical giants to physicians and public speakers who would promote their products.
The investigation has revealed that more than $220m was paid to health professionals last year for marketing purposes. Pfizer spent $34.4m on speakers, whilst Eli Lilly and Co. spent $61.5m, despite having half the sales of Pfizer.
Eli Lilly and Co. spokesman J. Scott Macgregor told ProPublica in an email: ‘We continue to believe in the benefits and value that educational programs led by physicians provide to patient care.’
ProPublica’s analysis of the data shows that the amount spent on promotional speakers took a dive last year. It suggests that health professional may stop accepting the payments for fear that patients may suspect that their advice was biased.
The information has been added to ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs database, which tracks the money paid by drug companies to clinicians. The data provides a taste of what the public can expect in 2013, when all drug companies will be required to publish this information.
