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Opinion Editorial Doctors, make objective prescribing decisions A large health care system in Minnesota teamed up with its physicians and, last week, disposed of the coffee cups, mugs, pens and other swag that drug company representatives had left for them. The 19,000 items required 20 shopping carts to haul away. The Associated Press story cited the health system's medical director as saying the physicians wanted patients to know the doctors were trying to minimize drug costs and make objective prescribing decisions. A strict conflict of interest code is taking hold across the health care industry since the American Medical Association published research showing that even little gifts drive prescription patterns. The Prescription Project (www.prescriptionproject.org) is helping to eliminate conflicts of interest and trying to ensure prescriptions are written based on science, not sales. The project is also a clearing house for information: You can learn that billions of dollars a year worth of drug samples given to physicians don't go to poor patients, as the industry claims. And that some of the older drugs for lowering cholesterol are as effective as and less expensive than the newer ones. Also, that the industry doesn't make negative studies of drug trials public. (The scientific name for this practice is "lying.") And so it goes. The move in Minnesota brought a howl of protest from the trade group of the big pharmaceutical companies with a representative of the group calling the move "draconian" and saying that the industry needs to do a better job of explaining the role of the drug company representatives. But, what the spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America didn't really say was that the industry's job is a rush to profits, whether or not a patient needs medication. It would be a great service to patients who come to Amarillo to find the medical community embracing The Prescription Project's goals. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: January 24, 2008
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