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Paid doctors just drug spruikers, says insider


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Paid doctors just drug spruikers, says insider

Nick Miller

June 21, 2008

http://www.theage.com.au/national/paid-doc...80620-2u8x.html

 

PHARMACEUTICAL companies consider the doctors in their pay to be little more than salespeople spruiking their products, a drug industry whistleblower has admitted in a prestigious medical journal.

 

In response, the British Medical Journal has called for medical leaders to stop accepting personal payments for promoting a company's drug or device.

 

Companies pay "key opinion leader" doctors up to $6000 a day to deliver lectures to boost sales of new drugs. They give them slides for their presentations and train them in what to say and what not to say.

 

The companies even have special software that tracks the return on their financial investment in the doctor, assessing how much their lectures, publications and work on advisory boards have improved sales.

 

If they don't show a boost in sales, they are dropped.

 

"Many leading specialists are being paid generous fees to peddle influence on behalf of the world's biggest drug companies," wrote Australian researcher Ray Moynihan in yesterday's edition of the British Medical Journal.

 

He interviewed Kimberly Elliott, who was an award-winning drug company sales representative for 18 years in the US.

 

Ms Elliott said the "opinion leader" doctors were "basically my salespeople".

 

"I would give them all the information I wanted them to talk about, I would give them slides, they would go through specific training programs on what to say and what not to say so it would be beneficial for my company," she said.

 

BMJ editor Fione Godlee said the revelations in Mr Moynihan's article were troubling.

 

"Medicine sorely needs leaders, but not if they've been bought," she said.

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