By Gardiner Harris, New York Times, June 27, 2004
“The check for $10,000 arrived in the mail unsolicited. The doctor who received it from the drug maker Schering-Plough said it was made out to him personally in exchange for an attached “consulting” agreement that required nothing other than his commitment to prescribe the company’s medicines.Two other physicians said in separate interviews that they, too, received checks unbidden from Schering-Plough, one of the world’s biggest drug companies”.
If this were an isolated incident, it would be just that, an isolated incident; but “According to the U.S. General Accountability Office, drug companies spent $16 billion on direct marketing to physicians in the United States in 2001, more than $19,000 per physician.” (Melissa M. Stiles, MD; Bruce Barrett, MD, PHD; American Family Physician, May 15, 2007).
I have heard that some doctors have received as much as $100,000 or more. It sounds unbelievable to me, too. I stand ready to be corrected; but no one is stepping forward to do the correcting.