In the New England Journal of Medicine, it was reported that 94 percent of the doctors polled said they had “direct ties” to the drug industry. The Institute of Medicine at the National Academies is drawing up conflict of interest guidelines for doctors, while leading medical schools are tightening their policies on accepting gifts. Congress and other state legislators are drafting laws to require drug companies to report these gifts publicly so patients can find out which doctors took what from the industry. Will the patients care and look up this data.

Pennsylvania and South Carolina have hired their own representatives to inform doctors about generics and discuss older drugs that are effective and cheaper that many of the newer medications. Many of which are no more effective than older well established drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies shower billions of dollars’ worth of gifts, consulting fees and trips to persuade them to prescribe their drugs. And of course the costs of these gifts are passed on to the consumers.

One study showed a increase of 275 percent from 1996 to 2004.

Jerry Avorn, M.D., of Harvard Medical School writes. While few would deny that new drugs have saved lives, new medications are typically more expensive than older or generic versions and can have adverse side effects that were not apparent in initial clinical tests. Prescribing new drugs for older patients is even more problematic because most drugs are approved based on trials in which older patients were woefully underrepresented.

Take Vioxx for example. Drug reps promoted Vioxx, minimizing unfavorable findings on the drug. Millions of prescriptions were written, right up until the drug was pulled from the market, in 2004. The marketing war against Celebrex by the Vioxx reps killed thousands of people. The FDA estimates that Vioxx cuased 27,785 deaths. Vioxx was a big moneymaker for Merck, generating about $2.5 billion in yearly sales.

Drug reps are effective. One study by Georgetown University found “that when a drug rep got one minute with a doctor, the doctor’s prescriptions for that drug increased 16 percent. With three minutes—52 percent.” I wish I could get 52% better gas milage in three minutes of effort. How about you?

I am treating chronic arthritis, both RA and OA with Low Level Laser Therapy. The results are impressive and the postive effcts are long lasting. Side effects? None.

Live Well,

Dr. Chris Carraway

Fortunately, my office does not function in that manner. I don’t care what the rep is offering the staff, no one of them has the power or authority to decide who gets seen and who doesn’t. We make it very clear that having an attitude like that will only cause the patient to suffer. It is very difficult to practice today without drug information and or samples, etc.
So, if anyone in the front office is determining all that by themselves, they should not be in that position at all.
Running a medical practice is difficult enough without all that additional stress.