Twelve docs facing heat for Big Pharma ties
If you want to be a doctor at Stanford University Medical School, you have to agree to a few rules as outlined in school policy.
One of the big no-no's in those rules? Getting paid by pharmaceutical companies for speaking engagements.
Faced with a check for thousands upon thousands of dollars dangling in front of you, you might just start asking yourself, "What's the harm in giving a little speech?"
Of course, then you might end up in the position of a dozen doctors who are under investigation by the school's disciplinary board. Their names came up in a database linking doctors with the Big Pharma companies that have paid them for speaking engagements.
One doctor earned $53,000 for one speech at a "Healthcare Professional Education Program" for Eli Lilly & Co. Lilly paid a now-retired former child psychiatrist a healthy $109,000 to talk about Strattera, an ADHD drug.
These names were among those revealed by a ProPublica investigation. They gathered the names of 17,000 doctors who were being paid by Big Pharma companies to "spread the good word" about their drugs to other doctors.
So, what's the harm in giving a speech? Well, there's the ethical problems that come with renting out a doctor's prestige to shill drugs. For these engagements, doctors usually read from a script prepared by the company while showing slides also prepared by the company. The only piece of the puzzle missing is the doctor's image, which is apparently easy to buy for the right number of zeroes.
And there's also the really big question of the conflict of interest when it comes to prescribing the right drugs for patients. Which will win? The patient's best interests, or the check the doctor just got in the mail? Think about the child psychiatrist who got paid $109,000. He's retired now, yes, but were he still in the office, would he be willing to discuss other options for your child's treatment? Or would he go right to Strattera?
Want to see if your doctor has received a Big Pharma payout? Search the database at http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/
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Christine O'Brien writes the e-letter Health eTips for Dr. Wright's Nutrition and Healing.
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Comments
Anonymous
This is one of the greatest pieces of medical information you could put on the Internet. I have signed up for notices from them. The problem is that the people who should check it out aren't even interested - they just do everything their doctor tells them and don't take responsibility for their own body. However, for those of us whose brains have not rotted and who never want to stop learning, this is wonderful. Thanks.
Marten
That's why I dont trust the MD,most of them are'' QUACK''
Ed Mack
Like a large share of our doctors who are like a large share of our elected officials, the lobbyists spread the wealth with little regard for the patients goodwill. Natural medicines are stopped from making their products information available to the average citizen. Politicians, lobbyists and doctors would rather see sick people die from toxic pills than CURED with natural CURES. More money is being made on patented pills than could ever be made on natural medicines that can't be patented.My doc won't even talk to me about it. Government, doctors,lobbyists and politicians can make much more money on forever treatment pills than forever cures.
Anonymous
Your artical is verry good and true.The doctors are brain
washing us and the people belive it.this is all over the world.
it can only change by governments in the world.but there
are also corrupted.the training must be given for nature
doctors.We have to many old and sick people in the world.
the healing is done by nature not by chemical doctors.
Fritz Owens
What's even worse a4e doctors that are paid by the multi-billion dollar cereal companies to write articles extolling the virtues of white sugar and how harmless the pesticides and chemicals in the cereal are for humans. The obesity epidemic has its roots in this type of unethical writing and should be stopped.
Anonymous
In all my 80 years I have only ever met one good doctor and he died of a heart attack which started in my driveway having been accosted by another local doctor who was shouting at him in a most unpleasanrt manner along the lines that he should 'behave ' like 'proper' doctors - I heard the row from the house but was too late to intervene before the damage was done. Some days before I had been to see this dreadful man - and not knowing any better - I had requested to go 'private' only to be told that 'there was only one entrance to the surgery so he couldn't oblige'.
This best of the best of doctors,who had been treating my wife. was Dr Murrey an Irishman of blessed memory and it still stands out in my memory some 50 years later.
Anonymous
These Doctors who change their Hippocratic Oath to a Hypocritical oath are not worth their SALT, granted there were not many, but now, every day more and more are joining these unscrupulous Docs, I’ve heard that the Oath is not required any more I guess these Docs shouldn’t feel guilty, but out of all these tragedies there are some good Doctors that with their good heart and with the welfare of their patients always number one priority are still visible, and in occasions they are being bullied by our government who also sworn an oath to defend and protect, yet that oath is nothing in comparison to MONEY, what a bunch of ?????? JAM
Frankie
It ALL revolves around $$$$ Big Pharma-Govt-PSYCHIATRISTS-Doctors....
PLEASE everyone-go to CCHR.org and watch these videos
You will absolutely appalled and disgusted that this is allowed to go on in this country
This homepage link is to a memorial site I created to my beloved son Jon who died May 23 2008-just 1 week before his 22nd birthday-
He died from sudden cardiac arrest caused by Zyprexa that was prescribed to him-by drs who "know whats best because they are the professionals"
I've watched all these videos and it makes my blood boil, to put it mildly.
Thank you for listening
mudshark12
Obviously Stanford University doesn't want to be named in any lawsuits by people who are suing Big Pharma for medicines that were recalled because of dangerous side-effects. How some of these Big companies consider death as a side-effect is beyond me, and tells me how little they care about the health of the people whom the are poisoning with their crappy meds.
Anonymous
Agreed. It's all about the money. There appears to be no real interest in health care anymore, only PROFITS. Their judgement day will come. Here in Australia, it appears to be exactly the same as the US. They want every one on drugs from infancy to old age, a sure way to ensure that PROFITS continue for a very long time. And if we don't take drugs, they poison us through the water and spray us from the air...
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