Comments on: Are Perks Compromising MD Ethics?

Conflict Of Interest Issues Raised By Drug Company Freebies Given To Doctors

[billoviatt]

I am a nutritional medicine consultant now with 46 years as a scientist/chemist in the antioxidant field. Every day I wrestle with these facts:
1. Legally prescribed and taken Rx drugs are now the fourth leading cause of death in the US - 180,000/year. Behind heart disease, cancer and stroke.
2. The average lifespan of people in the US is now 45th in the world - Japan is 1st.
3. The average healthcare cost per person in the US is now almost $7000/year. Second in the world is Switzerland at around $4300.
Is Big Pharma more concerned with the well-being of their sales and stockholders over their customer consumers? Worthy of serious examination!!

[veolla]

I''m not at all surprised at what is going on in the world today with humankind, for this was fortold in the scriptures.
Know this that critical times hard to deal with will be here. Luke 21:11,12 New world Translation.

Also in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Men would be lovers of money, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God,haughty, and ect. if you look up these scriptures and read for yourself and then you will see why the scriptures are being fulfilled just as it said.

Men in these days have no moral''s, everything goes and it is leading many off to destruction.

False teaching''s, false christ are here and it tell''s us not to follow these.
Indeed the last days are here and those who oppose Jehovah God will be destroyed.

[apprxam]

So far, patients, Big Pharma, For-profit hospitals, insurance companies, medical equipment manufactuers, goverment, lawyers and government, have all been blamed for the poor condition and high expense of healthcare in the United States. When are we going to place of these problems on doctors?

[okie1717]

whournameiz is out of touch. Doctors constantly take gifts, vacations, expensive dinners and, yes, even cash to push drugs. Your 1/2 a sandwich comment is shows your stupidity. I''ve seen the dog and pony show first hand. Check this list of Pharmaceutical companies. It''s highly ompetitve. www.pharmacy.org/company.html I''m guessing already know this. You sound like a rep. This is wide spread and it''s getting worse. New medications aren''t neccessarily better medications. Docs perscribe expensive antibiotics that, in some cases, aren''t any better than the cheaper one''s like Cipro. Another example is Omeprazole, which is the active ingredient in Prilosec. The generic, over the counter Omeprazole is 20mg and cost $7.99 for 14 tabs. The percription Omeprazole is the same drug but only 40mg. It costs $249.00 for 30 tabs! I asked the Pharmacist if I could just take 2 over-the-count 20mg tabs and she said "Absolutely". That''s $32 per month versus $249 per month. These doctors have been taught but, we have all been taught about pitfalls and what not to do when we get older. The problem is, money and greed. There are certainly people who need these medications but, there are many more that do not. I had anxiety when I was in my early 20''s and my doctor perscribed "Lithium". After a 5 minute conversation with him. No physical, no observation, nothing. I''m not Bi-polar and I have never been. It''s a huge problem and it needs to be corrected.

[randallk44]

Well said RandyNason!

I can''t even describe what its like trying to sort it out, for a person like me, with mental illness. Its very frustrating to work as hard as I am able with both mental and a physical disability, to try to be good and honest and left feeling it means very little.

[randynason]

Contrary to what some of these posts seem to indicate, the issue isn''t one of being too liberal or overly conservative. It''s an issue of either having moral character, or not. Humanity is not something that can be purchased. It''s developed at a young age and nurtured throughout life. Some people sell it, for a price.

[fharlass]

I wrote an article about this problem many years ago and it was recjected by the major journals. Advertising money, I was told was an issue. This is the reason why I do not attend the major meetings anymore. The drug companies, the MD/DO and the colleges (e.g. ACOG, AAFP, FACS etc.)have strong financial dealings. ALL the major meetings of the colleges are support by the drug companies. Pens, t-shirts, golfballs, food, junkets, etc etc. are pfaid for by the drug companies. Any physicians that says otherwise is being dishonest.
-an MD

[whournameiz]

CBS is starting to become the dumbest news channel. You go and find the most tragic case and then go targetting doctors to make your point. Unfortunately for your story. doctors are not as dumb as your reporting. Don''t you think they teach medical students and doctors about drug companies. Doctors need the reps and vversa. Otherwise doctors would never know about the new medications. 1/2 a sandwich is not gonna make someone prescribe anything more than something else. Is America not done yet beating up on their doctors?

[stick1770]

yep let''s once again point fingers and blame. Let''s medicate ourselves and kids when we have feelings that we are uncomfortable with. How about dealing with the emotions and getting the girl through the issue of attending school. Nope, the parents run to the doctor and look for a quick fix in drugs.

Same with the 20/20 where they were showing parents druging their 2yr old "bi-polar" children. It''s called parenting and it''s something this country is lacking anymore. It''s got to be someone elses fault that the kids are acting up. Drug them. Ah..there now we don''t have to worry about dealing with the children they are nice and calm and burned out on drugs at 3. Good job people. You don''t drug kids, you help them figure out how to deal with the problems they face. Or they turn out to be liberals that look to the government for all the solutions to their fears and problems. Heaven forbid that we actually take responsibility .

[beehive21-2009]

Everyone one is on the take,including,you.

[cyberus-2009]

As long as it is occurring in every government building (in the form of lobbyist money) it will never stop elsewhere.
Why? Because the people that pay for the rules to be made their way won''t allow it. Oh you may see a rule or two put in place ... with loopholes you can fly a 747 through to make sure they were pointless to begin with.
In other words .. until our elected officials are forbidden to feed at the *perks* trough they will see no need to stop others from doing it ... when they can not play the game you will be sure that they will put a stop to others doing it.

[randallk44]

Well, this is another subject I''m glad to see FINALLY covered. Some of the things I tried to bring to my local CBS news attention only to be ignored. They (doctors) get catered in fancy lunches on a regular basis on top of the other things. I know, used to manage my doctor''s computer network. Also had the gall to ask me to give him an inflated quote on a used computer so he could get a bigger tax write off.

So here is another thing tried to bring to many news stations attention. The anti-depressants cause suicidal thoughts in adults as well, not just children! I weened myself of them years ago and not a single suicidal thought has run through my head.

Our nation is broken folks, in its leadership, our bureaucracies, many of our businesses (big & small). As much as the news has been talking about gas, food, etc going up, the disabled have gotten NO cost of living increase. Our heroes returning from war are barely mentioned but if a school wins the national champianship, I''m told on the local news I should be ashamed if I''m not down there for the parade. YEP! We really have our priorities straight, don''t we???

[garbosmed]

About time! Let''s start with Paul Offit and Children''s Hospital in Philadelphia, why don''t we, and go on from there. How much money have they received from Pharma and vaccine makers? I think patients have every right to know if their doctor''s bank account or office overhead is padded by payments from Pharma or other medical suppliers. And I think that must necessarily include any stock transactions.

[fstop100]

The drug companies only care about money. If we all died tomorrow and it didn''t affect their profits they could care less.

[sistatee-2009]

No school can operate today without its "nurse" pushing the drug cart, room to room dispensing nose candy to all the little 5-yr old psychopaths. Johnny can''t read because he''s morphed out of his skull.

[zerosum2009]

"Overdosed America"
By John Abramson

The drug companies post fictionalized conclusions in medical journals directly after actually proving statistically in the same articles(!)that specific drugs not only do not work--but directly kill people.

To put it bluntly, its also very common for the drug companies to deliberately hire pretty girls to go around and directly influence whether a doctor prescribes a drug.

The whole industry needs to be drastically changed, yesterday--it needs to be nationalized--and this is no joke.

[denverjohnw]

Great story. There is a lot more to it. I hope you follow this up with more indepth reporting on how drug companies are pushing their pills. Yes, sometimes they are live savers, but too often today they are just band-aids on bullet holes.

I suggest you talk with Dr. Elio Frattaroli, author of a very imporant book, Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain. www.eliofrattaroli.com

[luvbug1104]

this really scares me because last year on feb 14, 2007 my son who was five years old was placed on two diffrent kinds of medication for bi-polor he became very distanced from us acting out then three months later he tryed killing himself twice thank GOD my husband and i got to him intime and neither time he was able to doit but thanks to this stupid dr with all his phds and *** i rushed my five year old baby to the er where they told me he had to stay this was at 11pm on june 29th 2007 by 7 am june 30 2007 my son at the age of five years old was being place in a sherriff cruser in the back where no child his age should ever be place taken to the county jail put in a holding cell then placed in a sherriff van and drove two hours away to a mental hospital for two weeks he spent fourth of july 07 there his father and i followed the van from the jail to the mental hospital where we waited 6 hours just to find out what was going on with our baby we as not aloud to see him the first day we had to wait to the following sunday to see him then we was only allowed to see our baby once aweek we was told while he was in the hospital he did not have bi polor and if he does hes way to young if he does have bi polor you cant tell to teen years i could have lost my son do to this stupid dr there really needs to be somethin done with the drs and taken money and everything there doing before more young children die

[tongo31]

I think that ALL politicians should also have to report any and all gifts, donations or payments of $500 or more on a public website to insure complete transparency of their actions. Also, any earmarks that a politicians submits into pending bills should also be made public to insure complete transparency.

[denn034]

All this emphasis upon perks and none on the fact that most doctors are activist liberals that see no problem with abusing their profession by using it to advance their liberal agendas. The fact that most doctors and the medical establishment generally are mostly liberals is an imbalanced environment that couldn''t be considered neutral in any way.