Two top professional journals — the Journal of the American Medical Association and Academic Medicine — have simultaneously published appeals to halt the (current average $13,000 a year) payola to each doctor by Big Pharma.
The articles, written by a distinguished panel of reform-minded doctors, suggest these cleanup proposals:
Forbid physicians to accept gifts, meals, drinks, travel payments, entertainment and the like from prescription drug firms and medical equipment makers.
Halt distribution of drug samples to doctors, replacing them with vouchers for low-income patients.
Don’t allow doctors with financial ties to pharmaceutical firms to sit on committees drafting preferred drug lists.
Prohibit physicians from making paid appearances at manufacturer events, or allowing their names to be put on articles ghostwritten by industry agents.
Require that any consulting or research contracts held by doctors be publicly available on the Internet.
Insider hopes that this movement takes root and grows.
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