Getting pharma money out of medicine is as urgent as getting money out of politics. Corruption in healthcare choices supplants the best interests of the patient.
Doctors paid by drug companies more likely to use those companies’ meds
Ophthalmologists who receive money from
pharmaceutical companies are more likely to prescribe medications
promoted by those companies than similar drugs that are less costly, a
new study shows.
Although the
data can’t confirm a cause and effect, researchers at Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis found a positive association
between reported pharmaceutical payments and increased use of drugs
prescribed to treat problems of the retina.The study is published online in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology.
Pharmaceutical companies often pay physicians for consulting,
speaking and sharing their expertise, but there are concerns that such
payments may influence some doctors’ prescribing practices. In 2010,
Congress passed the U.S. Physician Payments Sunshine Act, requiring
pharmaceutical and medical device companies to report all payments made
to physicians. The Washington University researchers analyzed data about
ophthalmologists that was made available as a result of that law.“There has been a lot of interest in the associations between industry payments and physician behavior, but the scientific data
that would allow us to tease out those relationships have not been
available to the extent that the information is available now,” said
senior investigator Rajendra S. Apte, PhD, MD, the Paul A. Cibis
Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at
Washington University. “I’m not willing to draw conclusions about
causality, but there is an association between contacts with industry
and prescribing patterns.”
EY FATTY BOOM BOOM 