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Finally, Medicines NZ has disclosed data showing how much certain healthcare professionals have been paid by Big Pharma. This data is only for 2021 and is not complete – for example, Pfizer and Merck are not included and the data for Novartis only covers two months.
While the big showy entertainment and dining events of the past (to win over physicians to prescribe, buy or recommend your products) are largely frowned upon now, pharmaceutical companies still fund research, universities, academics and their departments, journals (particularly through advertising), travel expenses, speakers…
For 2021, the payments to individuals disclosed is about half a million. Many of those individuals received multiple payments that ran into the thousands. Stuff includes the database, which is searchable.
A 2019 review of 36 studies found “receipt of financial payments from industry is consistently associated with increased prescribing”.
“Taken together, our results support the conclusion that personal payments from industry reduce the ability of physicians to make independent therapeutic decisions and that they may be harmful to patients,” the authors said.
The medical community should call for the payments to end, they concluded.
Well, d’oh.
A cynic might also wonder why Stuff and the Herald are concentrating on the money flow now.
Read more here. Discuss it on The BFD.
