Los Angeles Times

October 19,2010

by Judith Graham

Follow drug company money in Illinois, and it leads to the psychiatry department at Rush University Medical Center, a prominent headache clinic on the North Side of Chicago, a busy suburban urology practice and a psychiatric hospital accused of overmedicating kids.   In each of these settings, doctors are drawing an extra paycheck — worth tens of thousands of dollars a year or more — for speaking to other medical professionals about pharmaceutical products at company-sponsored, company-scripted events in Illinois and across the country.

The extent of these activities is only now coming to light as drug companies start publicly releasing data about their relationships with physicians, information that until now has been a closely guarded secret.

The pharmaceutical data show that 11 Illinois physicians each earned more than $100,000 between January 2009 and June 2010 from seven companies, according to a new database compiled by the national investigative news organization ProPublica. An additional 13 medical providers earned between $75,000 and $100,000, primarily for participating in speakers’ bureaus and educational forums. Most doctors received far lesser sums.

This medical moonlighting is perfectly legal but highly controversial.

Doctors and drug companies say their collaborations provide time-pressed medical professionals with much-needed education about how best to treat illnesses and how various drugs work. But other medical and policy experts say physicians involved in the activities have crossed an important line, straying into the realm of product promotion and potentially compromising their independence and patient care.

“Let’s be honest: The purpose of these talks is to influence doctors to buy a company’s drugs,” said Eric Campbell, an associate professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School.

That may raise potential problems if patients are prescribed medications that are not necessary, are needlessly expensive or are not appropriate for their conditions.

Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the  American Medical Association, criticized the speaking arrangements, saying they posed “a conflict of interest” and threatened to put doctors’ “own financial benefit before that of the patients who trust them.”

More than a dozen physicians interviewed by the Tribune explained that they work with drug companies because they enjoy teaching other practitioners about important medications and the research behind them. None of the physicians routinely tells patients about his or her drug company-sponsored activities, and all said they believe such ties have no effect on their medical practices.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.latimes.com/health/ct-met-doctors-drug-dollars-20101018,0,599135.story