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US Hospitals Ban Gifts to Doctors from Drug Industry
January 20, 2008 at 3:02 PM
Hospital News
Someone had to do crack the whip to try and break the unholy nexus between the drug industry and the doctors. Some US hospital chains have started doing so.
When a Duluth-based operator of hospitals and clinics purged the pens, notepads, coffee mugs and other promotional trinkets drug companies had given its doctors over the years, it took 20 shopping carts to haul the loot away.
The operator, SMDC Health System, intends to ship the 18,718 items to the west African nation of Cameroon.
The purge underscored SMDC's decision to join the growing movement to ban gifts to doctors from drug companies.
A couple of years ago the Journal of the American Medical Association said research had shown that even cheap gifts, such as pens, could affect doctors' prescribing decisions.
It is to counter such undesirable trends that the Pew Charitable Trusts floated the Prescription Project, which is now gathering steam.
SMDC scoured its four hospitals and 17 clinics across northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin for clipboards, clocks, mouse pads, stuffed animals and other items decorated with logos for such drugs as Nexium, Vytorin and Lipitor.
Trinkets, free samples, free food and drinks, free trips and other gifts have pervaded the medical profession, but observers say that's starting to change.
"We just decided for a lot of reasons we didn't want to do that any longer," Dr. Kenneth Irons, chief of community clinics for SMDC, told news agency AP.
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