Are Drug Companies Paying Your Doctor?

By on February 2, 2011 in News 19

creepyfootdoctorIs your doctor getting paid to hawk particular medicines to you? Using information made public as a result of lawsuits, ProPublica has a searchable database of drug company payments made to U.S. physicians.

Drug companies have long kept secret details of the payments they make to doctors for promoting their drugs. But seven companies have begun posting names and compensation on the Web, some as the result of legal settlements. ProPublica compiled these disclosures, totaling $295 million, into a single database that allows patients to search for their doctor. Receiving payments isn’t necessarily wrong, but it does raise ethical issues.

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EU3GEGAIFSJTMG63VI7ISY2M6I yahoo-EU3GEGAIFSJTMG63VI7ISY2M6I

    How exactly is shelling out unnecessary drugs to consumers because you were basically bribed to do so not WRONG? If it raises an ethical question, that means it’s raising the question of whether or not it is acceptable practice, ie wrong or right.

    Fucking psychiatry, how does it work??

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_EU3GEGAIFSJTMG63VI7ISY2M6I Anonymous

    How exactly is shelling out unnecessary drugs to consumers because you were basically bribed to do so not WRONG? If it raises an ethical question, that means it’s raising the question of whether or not it is acceptable practice, ie wrong or right.

    Fucking psychiatry, how does it work??

  • Owen Harper

    Seriously who thinks that attempting to influence the treatment issued by a doctor with anything other than medical information is EVER not wrong? We come here because Disinfo covers stories no one else does, but the price we pay in illogical statements and pure idiocy of reporting is becoming insufferable. This page is Loaded with compensated ads, why not put some of that into a competent editor?

    • DeepCough

      If I want to be sold the latest designer drug for some trumped-up disease invented to keep me on pills for years just to get my insurance dollars, then I’ll talk to a pharmaceutical rep or a psychiatrist, because that’s
      what these two kinds of people do best.

  • Owen Harper

    Seriously who thinks that attempting to influence the treatment issued by a doctor with anything other than medical information is EVER not wrong? We come here because Disinfo covers stories no one else does, but the price we pay in illogical statements and pure idiocy of reporting is becoming insufferable. This page is Loaded with compensated ads, why not put some of that into a competent editor?

  • DeepCough

    If I want to be sold the latest designer drug for some trumped-up disease invented to keep me on pills for years just to get my insurance dollars, then I’ll talk to a pharmaceutical rep or a psychiatrist, because that’s
    what these two kinds of people do best.

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    Anyone who imagined that that stuff doesn’t happen everyday is kidding themselves. My grandad was a smalltown doc in Ohio for 50 years…and he was perpetually griping about the commercialization of diagnostics and prescriptions. He HATED public advertisements for meds…because them people come in expecting that they know what they have…or are hyper aware of some faint symptoms but unaware of others. It skewed the process of diagnostics all to hell. He may have been the grumpy country doc, but he wasn’t wrong about the principles involved in keeping medicine focused on treatment of patients…with the first consideration being getting someone well as quickly and safely as possible.

    • DeepCough

      “getting someone well as quickly and safely as possible.”

      Unfortunately, that principle clashes with the raison d’etre of the medical industrial complex, which seeks to keep people as sick for as long as possible.

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    Anyone who imagined that that stuff doesn’t happen everyday is kidding themselves. My grandad was a smalltown doc in Ohio for 50 years…and he was perpetually griping about the commercialization of diagnostics and prescriptions. He HATED public advertisements for meds…because them people come in expecting that they know what they have…or are hyper aware of some faint symptoms but unaware of others. It skewed the process of diagnostics all to hell. He may have been the grumpy country doc, but he wasn’t wrong about the principles involved in keeping medicine focused on treatment of patients…with the first consideration being getting someone well as quickly and safely as possible.

  • DeepCough

    “getting someone well as quickly and safely as possible.”

    Unfortunately, that principle clashes with the raison d’etre of the medical industrial complex, which seeks to keep people as sick for as long as possible.

  • E.B. Wolf

    This is why I never trust any medication that’s come out in the last half century. Unless the doc says he’s prescribing me painkillers, antibiotics, or muscle relaxers, I tell him to keep his script pad to himself.

    • Rex Vestri

      Even some of the newer antibiotics have turned out to be harmful. Fluoroquinolone antibiotics, for example, (Ciprofloxacin, Levofloxacin, & many others) are really dangerous.

      • E.B. Wolf

        Good point. But if you’re in a situation where antibiotics are required, like an abscessed tooth, you don’t have a lot of options there.

  • E.B. Wolf

    This is why I never trust any medication that’s come out in the last half century. Unless the doc says he’s prescribing me painkillers, antibiotics, or muscle relaxers, I tell him to keep his script pad to himself.

  • jchadbou

    Maybe the drug companies can make it clearer if their drug is effective at curing disease or if its just more snake oil for consumers to buy. Going to the doctor’s office will be like going to see a mechanic, always trying to sell you unneeded repairs.

  • jchadbou

    Maybe the drug companies can make it clearer if their drug is effective at curing disease or if its just more snake oil for consumers to buy. Going to the doctor’s office will be like going to see a mechanic, always trying to sell you unneeded repairs.

  • Anonymous

    Even some of the newer antibiotics have turned out to be harmful. Fluoroquinolone antibiotics, for example, (Ciprofloxacin, Levofloxacin, & many others) are really dangerous.

  • E.B. Wolf

    Good point. But if you’re in a situation where antibiotics are required, like an abscessed tooth, you don’t have a lot of options there.