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EDITORIAL: Drug Reps, Keep the Gifts

Posted on: Sunday, 29 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By The Blade, Toledo, Ohio

Jan. 29--Most Americans visiting physicians have seen pharmaceutical representatives in the waiting room. Usually the reps leave doctors small, insignificant gifts. But it's time to adopt a ban on large and small presents. Ethical doctors should avoid any appearance that such items influence how they treat patients.

Many doctors happily take free drug samples from reps and pass them on to patients because it saves patients money, and it's not just the senior citizens or poorer patients who gladly receive them. But suppose some other medication or medical device would work better for a patient than the free samples the doctor provides?

The practice of drug reps bearing any type of gift should be stopped, some physicians say in a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Drug firms are an important component in the health-care system. However, when they spend vast sums of money to court doctors - way more than they do on research and consumer advertising - it seems as though the companies are the most important part of that system, and that the doctors come in second.

So where's the benefit for patients?

That is exactly the concern raised in the Journal report.

Most of the gifts doctors ordinarily receive are modest in value: a box of pens or writing pads promoting a drug, for instance. However, sometimes doctors are given vacations, golfing trips, or hefty consulting contracts.

It's worrisome that imposition of a ban on such gifts may not lead to much real change. Enforcement would be a problem. But it's still worth a try.

The best hope might be for medical schools, teaching hospitals, and medical associations such as the American Medical Association to condemnsuch practices as unethical.

Of course, doctors' groups could follow the example set by Kaiser Permanente and a few other managed-care organizations, which have adopted the recommendations.

And as far as we can tell, there has been no public demand in California that Kaiser drop the policy because patients can't get free samples of medications from doctors any longer.

A widespread ban on gifts from drug firms would be in the best interest of patients. After all, isn't their welfare supposed to be what health care is all about?

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Blade, Toledo, Ohio

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

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Source: The Blade

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