J&J Is Biggest Spender on Military Prescribing Junkets

(MoneyWatch)  Johnson & Johnson was the biggest spender on free travel for Pentagon medical officials -- junkets to conferences that have since been banned for some military staff. Drug and device companies spent $10 million sending Pentagon medical officials on free trips, according to a review of travel expense claims by the Center for Public Integrity.

The trips were taken by Department of Defense doctors, medical researchers, pharmacists, and other health care employees, between 1998 and 2007. They pose a confilct of interest as many of these officials are the same people making decisions about which drugs should be on formulary lists for defense employees.

The top five spenders, per CPI, were:

• Johnson & Johnson, 187 trips at a cost of more than $215,000;
• GlaxoSmithKline, 95 trips at a cost of more than $120,000;
• Hologic Company, 37 trips at a cost of more than $102,000;
• Medtronic, 86 trips at a cost of more than $93,000;
• Smith & Nephew, 81 trips at a cost of nearly $90,000. Source: CPI; click on chart to enlarge.

One of the doctors who received trip expenses from Medtronic, Timothy Kuklo, allegedly faked data in a British medical journal, according to the New York Times.

Admiral Thomas McGinnis, chief of the Pharmaceutical Operations Directorate for DOD's military health care program, has prohibited his direct staff from going on company-paid trips.

Shahram Ahari, a former Eli Lilly sales rep, explained to CPI what drug companies get out of it:

If it costs them a thousand dollars for a dinner, that's a [patient's drug] payment for one month. If they fly you on the Concord to Paris for five grand, even if they get one patient out of it, it's a lifetime of cash.