[News] Pfizer Gives Details on Payments to Doctors

[Birdbomb]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/business/01payments.html?hpw

Pfizer Gives Details on Payments to Doctors

Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, said Wednesday that it paid about $20 million to 4,500 doctors and other medical professionals for consulting and speaking on its behalf in the last six months of 2009, its first public accounting of payments to the people who decide which drugs to recommend.

Pfizer also paid $15.3 million to 250 academic medical centers and other research groups for clinical trials in the same period.

While other pharmaceutical companies have disclosed payments to doctors, Pfizer is the first to disclose payments for the clinical trials. The disclosure does not include payments outside the United States.
A spokeswoman for Pfizer, Kristen E. Neese, said most of the disclosures were required by an integrity agreement that the company signed in August to settle a federal investigation into the illegal promotion of drugs for off-label uses.

Dr. Freda C. Lewis-Hall, Pfizer’s chief medical officer, characterized the disclosure and Web site as part of “a march to disclosure” that the company started in 2002.

Pfizer is the fourth major drug company to make such disclosures, following Eli Lilly, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline. All four Web sites are searchable by the names of doctors or organizations, but all are set up in ways that make it difficult to download and analyze the entire database.

“All of them are welcome, but none of them is a replacement for a single national database,” said Allan Coukell, director of the Pew Prescription Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trust.

Beginning in 2012, drug and medical device companies will be required to disclose payments to doctors of more than $10, with the first report available in 2013. The Physician Payment Sunshine Act was passed as part of health care reform. Some states also have disclosure laws.

Ms. Neese said the disclosures included elements not required by the federal agreement, like payments to academic centers and to nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

The reporting also goes beyond the Sunshine law, Pfizer said, by not imposing a delay of up to four years on financial support for clinical trials. Pfizer plans to report the payments without the delay.

Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine and a writer on conflicts of interest, said, “If they’re doing that — it would amaze me if they did, but if they are — that’s great.”

Dr. Angell said the Pfizer amounts seemed low although she had no specific knowledge. “I can’t help but think something has escaped,” she said.

Pfizer’s disclosure met with skepticism from one specialist on conflicts of interest in medicine.
“I think it’s a good thing to do, but I put absolutely no trust in what drug companies voluntarily disclose to the public when those things are unaudited,” said Eric G. Campbell, lead author of a 2007 study of physician-industry relationships published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Professor Campbell, who is director of research at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said drug companies were trying to get ahead of a rising tide of public opinion for disclosure.

The payments to doctors covered fees, travel and meals worth $25 or more and totaling $500 or more during the six-month period, Pfizer said.

 

[PhylisFeinerJohnson]

Birdbomb, you RULE! I've just sent this to all my friends (and former clients) in the health and wellness field!

 

[Endless]

Birdbomb,

Thank you so much for this info! A former doc of mine kept pressing and pressing and pressing for me to use Namenda. She did the same to a friend of mine. I couldn't understand why. She sent us both home with a "starter pack," but neither of us took the bait. We threw it out once we got back home. The information you provided has a possible explanation of why she was pushing the drug. I had no idea they got any form of "compensation" in association with certain drugs.

Your post motivated me to do some more research.

They don't get money directly from prescribing it, but if they prescribe lots of it they may be invited to lecture, or participate in clinical trials.

An average of 37% of docs participate in pharma-compensated lecture or research. If they are a specialist, like a neurologist, that number goes up. It also goes up if they are unhappy with their income level.

Docs can boost their income by anywhere from 5% to 20% by participating in clinical trials and lectures, but most only boost income by 5% or less. For a doc earning $350,000 (a specialist), that's $17,500 or less for the 5% bracket, up to $70,000 for the 20% bracket.

How many docs get "gifts"

AMA Guidelines
How much can a doc earn from clinical trials and lectures?


Here's a summary of the OIG federal guidelines, and the pretty shameful practices it tries to put a stop to: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/24/4/949.pdf

If a doc seems overly enthusiastic about any given drug, now I know to view it with a bit of suspicion.

 

[Birdbomb]

I can't wait till the day they force medical device companies, like Cyberonic$ maker of the VNS, to spill their guts about their payouts and perks.

These financial connections are causing harm to patients and in some cases even costing the patient their life! All for the love of the almighty dollar.

First do no harm..