Pharmaceutical Spendings

IS YOUR A DOCTOR A SHILL FOR BIG PHARMA?

Now there is a way to find out. The U. S. Government is maintaining a data base of who paid what to whom. It’s called open payments and the link is here.121009020524-pills-money-prescription-story-top

You can enter any doctor’s name and see what he was paid and why. This includes research, which is likely to be reasonable, to consulting, which seems to be mainly a marketing activity, to drinks, which is an eyebrow raiser, to an interesting category called:

“Compensation for services other than consulting, including serving as faculty or as a speaker at a venue other than a continuing education program.”

…which translate to plugging the drug, or as Johnson and Johnson politely puts it: “Fees for speaking at programs on our company’s behalf.”

You can also search by company. Some of them are spending some pretty serious money. Here is what several big pharmaceutical companies spend compensating doctors – not counting research.

Merck $8 million

Johnson and Johnson $25 million

Gilead  $3.5 million

Amgen $7 million

Pfizer $20 million

GlaxoSmithKlein $3 million

Novartis $6.5 million

Sanofi $3.5 million

AstraZeneca $15 million

Abbott Labs $2.8 million

Bayer $1.2 million

This is just shy of $100 million. Of the three: pharma, doctor, and patient, one must ask: whose interests are being served?

Though you may not be able to answer that question, you can now at least know how much they are being served.

 

 

  1 comment for “Pharmaceutical Spendings

  1. March 5, 2016 at 11:37 am

    Honestly, its better you colnust a specialist. I really want to help but I don’t think I can give better answers than specialist do. Sorry.good luckLove is omnipresence, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

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