No More Pharma Freebies, Penn Says
By Dawn Fallik, The Philadelphia Inquirer
May 2–Pharmaceutical companies will no longer be able to bring free pizza to doctors in the University of Pennsylvania health system. No more pads and no more pens. And medical students, no more Friday pharma buffet for you, either.
Less than five months after a major medical journal chastised doctors for accepting gifts and meals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Pennsylvania Health System announced a crackdown Tuesday, requiring reps to make appointments to see doctors and forbidding them from bringing even the smallest gifts.
“I don’t think we’re entitled to be fed everyday,” said Patrick J. Brennan, chief medical officer at Penn. “I don’t think our doctors’ decisions should be influenced by that.”
Instead, pharma companies can give “unrestricted grants” to the chairs or chiefs of departments, who will decide how to spend the money. Brennan said most of it would be spent for educational purposes, like bringing in academic speakers.
Although the new program is the toughest in the Philadelphia area, the school will not prohibit doctors and other staff from dining out with pharmaceutical industry reps — often at lavish restaurants. But the practice is “discouraged,” Brennan said.
“We can’t control what doctors do in their off hours,” he said.
And whether doctors will start turning those dinners down will be hard to know.
As Brennan spoke, a drug rep from MGI Pharma was emailing doctors at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital from her laptop, inviting them to a dinner program in two weeks.
Penn’s announcement seemed to take representatives from the pharmaceutical industry by surprise. About 100 attended the meeting.
Dee Mahoney, a representative from Pfizer Inc., said that the industry and the hospital shared the same goal: to help the patient.
“Quite frankly, we’d be happy not to have to bring in pizza,” she said. “But we found that the only way we could get in to see the doctor was to bring in pizza.”
In January, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article written by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Philadelphia-based American Board of Internal Medicine, among others. It called on doctors, particularly those at academic institutions, to stop accepting even small gifts.
Physicians and their staffs regularly receive pitches from pharmaceutical reps, which is mainly how they hear about new drugs. But those pitches are often given at expensive dinners, with spouses invited, or accompanied by pricey lunches. One device company offered a doctor $400,000 for a few days of consulting.
Repeated studies have shown that doctors who accept even small gifts or free samples tend to prescribe those drugs; one study found that half the time the drug was not the one preferred for the illness. Research has also found that doctors themselves say they’re not influenced — but say a majority of their peers are.
Contact staff writer Dawn Fallik at 215-854-2795 or dfallik@phillynews.com.
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