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Showing posts from June, 2010

How much for your vote, Senator?

It is not a secret that large sums of money have passed from the pharmaceutical and device manufacturers into physicians' hands. This money has been paid not only for such socially beneficial pursuits as research and consulting, but also for lavish gifts and junkets. And interestingly, despite disingenuous assertions to the contrary by many a stake holder, these gifts generated a return on investment -- surprise! It turns out that the spender companies could count on improving their prescription volumes in return for their magnanimity. Well, of course this is really no surprise. After all, we all know that money talks. What has been less clear over the years is whether small, almost inconsequential gifts, might also be influential in changing practices. Social sciences provided us with an answer to this : even gifts of small value create fertile soil for payback. OK, then, the answer became clear: remove all manufacturer influence from the day-to-day world of medicine. And so it h