Dollars for Docs: Who’s On Pharma’s Top-Paid List? - ProPublica

Dollars for Docs: Who’s On Pharma’s Top-Paid List? - ProPublica: "The list includes a big-name cancer specialist with a thick resume of peer-reviewed research, but also doctors whose qualifications as experts remain a mystery.

Self-promoters who boast of their persuasive skills are mixed in with physicians who refuse to discuss the nature of their promotional work.

Dollars for Docs is part of an ongoing investigation into the influence of drug company payments on patient care. Our list of 43 doctors [2] earning more than $200,000 is based on reports from seven companies that have publicly disclosed such payments to date—GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer, Cephalon, Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson. ProPublica plans to continue updating the payments data as additional companies reveal them.

So, what kind of doctors are pharma's handpicked stars?

* Fewer than half are formal educators affiliated with academic medical centers or prominent leaders in their medical societies. The rest are a mix of physicians with limited credentials or about whom little could be gleaned despite searches of research publications, academic websites and professional society leadership lists.
* Five of the 43 are from Tennessee—more than any other state, even though it's the 17th-largest by population. New Jersey, Texas, California, New York and Michigan each had three.
* Eleven of the 43 have board certification in the small field of endocrinology, a hotly competitive area because of the multibillion dollar market for diabetes drugs. Eight physicians, the next-largest subgroup, hold no advanced certification, despite speaking on specialized diseases and treatments.
* Only three of the top earners are women—all endocrinologists, one each from Louisiana, Tennessee and New Jersey.
* More than half worked for two or three companies. One Tennessee diabetes physician worked for five. Seven earned money solely from Glaxo.