Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

VINCENT_LOWE — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:05:38 GMT

Yep, I would just like to add my disgust over this whole scenario.with Drs and drug companies. I have stopped taking prescription drugs since becoming more aware of all the issues surrounding them and am now treating myself God's way and finding far better results with my angina. I was starting to get several angina attacks a day after a quadruple bypass 15 years ago.despite prescription drugs. However since starting on the natural path of taking two or more desert spoons of good quality olive oil as well as Omega 3 fish oil and including a natural alternative tablet for lowering cholestorol my angina seems to have stopped, and this has only taken about 4 weeks or so to start getting these results. Therefore I am proving a point that doing it God's way cannot be beaten and I am also not helping to line the pockets of the drug barons and the drug pushing Doctors. V.L.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

healthyyouampme — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:42:14 GMT

I don't mean to sound skeptical or even cynical, but naturopathic doctors where I live are selling supplements to their patients. As consumers, the ND's patients don't know the nature of their doctor's relationship with a supplement company (if one exists). Some ND's are beginning to offer esoteric and unproven services such as biofeedback systems, and services found in spas like ionic footbaths. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe in the premise of alternative medicine. However, what's to stop these practitioners from being wooed by growing nutritional supplement companies and companies selling natural health oriented systems? After all, they are running a business, besides providing a much needed service. How do we know alternative health practitioners (ahp's) aren't subject to brainwashing and persuasiveness? As they are only human, ahp's can be type-cast based on personality: ie friendly, charismatic, etc. Or is the spending mechanism of this industry just not big enough? I haven't been able to find any discussion of this on the internet, although where I live some MD's are making the charge that ND's are "in the pocket" of some nutritional companies .

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

curious7 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:16:05 GMT

Keep the palms greased, keep the trillions flowing. Pay the doctors, the FDA, and anyone else to keep those trillions flowing. Oh and a great number of very big lies, and deceptions does not hurt.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

K.T. — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:59:07 GMT

I must say I agree with a certain person who wrote "You have to go to the drug pusher to get written permission to go to the drug dealer."

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

T_rex — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:31:40 GMT

Drug-based medicine is definetely a corrupt system never to be trusted. I haven't gone to a doctor in 30 years. (I'm 61)

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

tby000 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:31:01 GMT

New user. How do I find out how to decipher the icons for thumbs up/down/poison and what do the points mean? Sorry, but I couldn't find anyplace that tells me that.

Also, I can't email this story...button doesn't work. What am I doing wrong. Hope it's ok to ask these questions.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

Bill Henderson — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:49:23 GMT

I used to play golf with a pediatrician. He said he saw 4-6 drug reps every day. During one year he got a week-long trip to Torrey Pines (6 rounds of golf) and another week-long trip to Prague, with his wife accompanying him, of course -- all paid for by drug companies. The "continuing education" during each trip was also conducted by drug reps (or doctors paid up to $10,000 for their talk).

Money corrupts. Big money corrupts absolutely!

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

tby000 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:29:05 GMT

I concur...I was a Pfizer rep for decades. Retired early due to all the really disgusting practices I was forced to participate in. Everything stated by others is true, but there is so much more.

Dinner for doctor & his whole family if he'll just listen to a "medical specialist" while his dinner is being prepared. Of course this "medical expert" has no bias....(if he didn't, he wouldn't be there)

Doctors had so many invites to expensive restaurants that they could take their wife out every nite if they wanted to to hear a "medical expert" talk. These guys were being paid anywhere from $500-1,500 for a 30-60 minute talk, and they were nothing more than a dog and pony show. We called them "prostitutes", to say it nicely.

Some physician groups advertised in classifieds when looking for help: Free breakfast & dinner every day. (paid for of course by pharmaceutical companies)

So much more....but out of space.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

Zipper_203 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:21:43 GMT

I have seen both sides of this ugly coin. I used to work as a medical sales rep selling everything from insulin to surgical trays to anesthesiogists (in the 1990's) The companies put an extreme amount of pressure on sales reps to get face time with the doctors. Sometimes there was 2-3 sales reps selling the same product to the same doctor, talk about burnout!.. and the lunches and free trips! I finally got fed up, very depressed and quit!

Now I am the patient. I see a psychiatrist for depression. Here is what she has prescribed for me... Effexor, Seroquel( off label), Temazepam and Gabapantin(off label). I can only imagine what she is making in spiffs. Of course I don't take all these meds.. I would be a dead horse if I did! But I do have a tough time with depression and sleeping and am doing the best I can with exercise.

People just have to use common sense when it comes to their own health.. doctors don't care.. it is up to us.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

tby000 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:58:17 GMT

I AM that Pfizer rep whose business you got as a cocktail waitress. (or obviously, one of them) I spent more than two decades in that position, and got so disgusted with what was happening in the industry that I retired much earlier than I would have otherwise.

Try these stories that I know to be true because I participated personally in these practices...and many others. These are just some of the more egregious ones.

* Dash & Dine - doctor stops by a nice restaurant where the rep is waiting with a "medical specialist" who will speak to the doctor in the name of "education" while his/her dinner is being prepared. (it was advertised to them that the meal was for their entire family so the wife wouldn't have to cook tonight) Some ordered from steak houses with as many as ten orders. (the exception, not the rule) I was sometimes shocked at the greed I witnessed.

* Some local offices (where there were many doctors especially) would advertise for help in the classifieds with ads that said: Free breakfast and lunch every day. (provided by drug reps of course)

* I would drop off invitations to doctors for "my" evening program to be held at an expensive steak house and they would put it in a folder with all the others. Any night the doc wanted to go out to dinner with his spouse to the best places in town, he/she would just take out the folder and shop for where they felt like dining. I understand that since I've retired that spouses are not invited but I doubt that. They always seem to find a way because generally thats the only way to get docs out in the evening. They only have to hear a "medical talk" for between 30-60 minutes at the most.

* Medical talks" - A good speaker would get between $1,000 - $1,500 for one of these 30-60 minute talks. They always had impeccable credentials and sounded very authoritative. At the end of their "talk", the only reasonable conclusion a person could make was that the drug that was sponsoring the talk was the best and only one that should be used.

* When I started "detailing", I almost never saw another rep all day. When I retired, I would see 10 in one parking lot at the same time. (at the targeted offices) We would all run to get in line.

I could go on all day....but think my words are gone!

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

corgi — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 10:28:47 GMT

Violations of the hipocratic oath? First do no harm. Does peddling unneeded and unwarranted useless and deadly drugs onto their patients constiture "doing harm"? Of course, it does... Doctors are no different from the drug dealer on the streets of a large city. They push drugs that will sooner kill you than help you. Read the warning labels on 90% of the scripts that a doctor writes these days. Ilnesses that once went away after two weeks are now bombarded by $200 bottle of antiwhatchamacallits. Other meds cause heart attacks, strokes, tumors, cancers, bone loss, organ failure, sexual disfunction, it just goes on and on. People are in such a rush to "get to work" to supply convict/slave labor to companies that use them then throw them away, that they are always sick and eating more pills to feel better. Combine that with the poison we consumed called food and drinks, its a wonder we dont ahniahlate ourselves from the ignorance. Doctors and Pharmas dont "cure" anyone. They maintain/manage us so that we will linger in agony as long as science will keep us breathing so that we may consume more drugs and doctors services. If the medical industry cured us, we would need about 20% of them. The rest could go get a real job and work like the rest of the world. Either that or clean offices for congress.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

BeyondOrganic — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:36:07 GMT

Don't Ya just HATE it when you later see your own comments and notice all the typos??!! UGH!! Oh well........

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

Katee Roux — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:23:11 GMT

I worked for a MD while in college ('91-'92). Before the marketing direct to consumers/patients. It never occurred to me that providing MDs with sample meds & pens & paper pads was something "crossing the line." Even tho we know that pharmaceutical companies spend money on much more than this, i think it is these small things that have a huge impact. Of course, the doc i worked for didn't use the samples as the company intended. Those companies planned for the docs to give 2-3 days of samples & then write a script for the rest. She would give folks handfuls of drugs. If it was for something like antibiotics, short-term, she'd give them the whole script & they didn't have to purchase any.

My former MD had a sign in his office for the drug reps telling them 5 minutes a month, don't come into my office more than once a month.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

BeyondOrganic — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:13:52 GMT

Oh yeah this I know is true. I used to work in the pharmacies and loved it when they brought us catered meals and pens and paper and all kinds of goodies! We looked forward to that crap. It is such a joke! And I have mentioned before, you can't ever go to your Dr. without seeing at least 1 drug rep. pass through with his free drug samples and pamphlets. This is exactly how the game is played!!!

And you are right on about the MD's having no nutrition training. I always had heard it was four hours, but recently I quoted that to a surgeon that I met at one of my children' gym classes (who by the way is married to an Ob-gyn and they do NOT vaccinated their kids either!) he corrected by saying he was only given 1 HOUR of training (if you can call it that) on nutrition in all of his medical schooling and training. NOT surprising I must say.

re: Virtually All U.S. Doctors Accept Money, Freebies from Drug Companies

samurai — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:44:24 GMT

I concur with you, Russ.
I believe that I have posted this before, but when I was a cocktail waitress going through college, all the waitresses would vie for the Pfizer parties because they would spend lavish $$$$$ on the doctors's dinners (we made 20% of the bill). Of course these dinners were all in the name of educating the physicians.