My children see pediatricians who are part of a large, multi-doctor practice that includes primary care physicians and specialists. Do such clinics ever contract with drug companies, and if so, are those relationships disclosed?

How about disclosing all of the lunches, dinners, snacks and other items that companies bring into physician practices?  I know my physician group gets lunch from some vendor every day of the month- and they’re dumb enough to show the calendar in a public hallway!  Lunches for 8 doctors and like 10 secretaries and nurses has to be over $100 a day!

A comparable list of compensation from medical device and equipment manufacturers should also be published!

Thank you for this much needed public service.  I am almost over whelmed by the amount information you have provided.

May I ask if there is any public information regarding other health care workers/facilities getting these payments from drug companies - such as hospitals and rest homes?

I am a drug rep and I am disgusted with the way the media paints this with a negative brush.  You have a short memory, these drugs costs hundreds of millions to bring to the market and only a short time to recoup their investment.  The US Gov rewards competitors who challenge your patents.  It is a FACT that generics are less effective than branded drugs and have considerably more side effects.  As the baby boomers get older and more sick many of you want your parents to have cutting edge medicine that will bring a miracle cure.  Well guess what, that costs a lot of money to do and the way things are progressing you kiss your parents good bye.  Everybody wants their $4 Walmart drugs but thinks nothing of spending $5 a day at Starbucks.  You are all cheap morons and will destroy my industry within 5 years.  Then there will be another 100+k reps looking for work.  I hope I take your job.

Response to Drug rep…“As the baby boomers get older and more sick many of you want your parents to have cutting edge medicine that will bring a miracle cure”.

Ahh! The guilt trip approach…what else do they teach you to push your drugs?
Where is this ‘miracle cure’ when the patient is not getting the best drug for them, but just some drug the doc is pushing because he is in cahoots with the likes of you and your company? And then they die anyway…
I just found one of my expert docs on ‘the list’, and guess what?? The first of this month, he put me on a medicine for an ailment that no other doctor has ever even been concerned with….yep, it is one he has taken payment from the drug company!
I wondered why he wouldn’t even let me ask questions at my last visit…I am glad I found this information while looking for another doctor to take his place…I don’t want anything he has to give, not even the $4 generic meds!
I don’t trust any doctor who would be biased with drug companies’ medicines to push their products, and as well, put his monetary value above the health and well-being of another individual. That is about all the drug industry amounts to anyway.  And I hope with your attitude towards other people, you don’t ever grow old, and need medicine for you ailments…you might not get the right kind. By the way, I am a nurse, and you can have my job anytime you want it!

Also public information that state agencies get copious funding from big Pharma. Public information that most if not all professional/public information campaigns directed at pediatricians promoting more aggressive drug and vaccine deployment are big Pharma funded.  So also ask your child’s doctor if the drug prescribed was based on any of their professional education/training programs, often in form of videos or slide presentations.  Your children cannot ask these questions and their health could be affected.  Be a strong advocate for your children with the view that an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.

Response to Drug rep:  You are an example of someone who knows they have a losing argument and has to try to shout down everyone in the room with cheap sophomoric intimidation tactics.  By the way I have seen the propaganda, err… I mean “training” materials promoted by the organization PHARMA.  They tell us of the “horrors” of not using the most advanced drugs.  Also your rant reads as if you are justifying whatever risks are involved from drugs forced upon the ignorant by a “bought and paid for pill pusher” are worth it and we should just put up with it.  Guess what?  This drug / market / regulatory / international landscape is so muddled, there can be no optimum.  But big U.S. Pharma has simply run out of ideas, and with Chinese command economy directing massive R&D spending run-ups, your “broken:” business model is about to be steam rolled, not for the fallacious distractions you pander, but because you have ignored: “innovate or die”.  If you spent your fortunes less on lobbying and more on retaining people who still know how to create and invent, perhaps you would not be appearing like the dog backed into the corner on two hind legs yelping moronically.

While I appreciate your concerns about your doctor, you should know that I choose my own doctor and my childrens doctor based on comfort level, intelligence, and bed side manor.  By suggesting that your leaving your doctor because he/she took money from a Pharmaceutical is ridiculous.  EVERY doctor in some capacity takes money from Pharmaceutical companies.  All new drugs brought to market come from a collaboration with doctors.  You should know that every drug has an approval process.  If the individual doctor does not take money then the hospital they are affiliated with does.  It’s unescapable!! 
Also, do you ask your insurance agent about his affiliations or your mechanic if he every accepted a free wrench from a vendor.  When you really think about it you just proved my point.  You fell victim to media targeting.  You only blogged on this because you stumbled onto a website.  Your a hypocrit.  Shame on you.

And another thing.  On average a new doctor goes to 4 years undergrad, another 4 years of Medical School, another 2 years of residency.  Multiple continuing education coarses through the AMA.  To suggest that most doctors do not have the intelligence to make their own decisions for their patients is silly.  It insults their intelligence, just ask them on your next visit.

As an Administrator of a large group practice, lunch time is really the only time the docs can sit down and actually listen to what the reps are trying to tell them about new drugs.  All companies schedule lunch with our doctors and nurses and they aren’t pushing or selling their drugs, they are giving us valuable information that may not be known to us otherwise.  Yes, there are journal articles about some new drugs or drug studies but if you saw the amount of journals our docs get in one week, it is humanly impossible to read all of them!  Doctors keep taking hits about everything they do, money they make, etc. but no one seems to realize the expenses involved in operating a practice, let alone the hours these guys put in to take care of their patients.  If you factor in expenses and the amount of red tape we got through just to get paid, these doctors are averaging an hourly wage of an engineer!  Our health system was broken, but it is quickly becoming beyond repair.