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Senior Citizen Politics
Senate Aging Committee Focuses on $19 Billion Drug
Companies Give Physicians
‘Paid to Prescribe? Exploring the Relationship
Between Doctors and the Drug Industry’ is hearing title
 June 26, 2007 - How much are the prescribing
decisions by physicians influenced by the reported $19 billion in money
and gifts given to them each year by the pharmaceutical industry? That
is what Senate Special Committee on Aging Chairman Herb Kohl (D-WI)
hopes to find out in a committee hearing on Wednesday.
The pharmaceutical industry’s costly practice
provides doctors with subsidies in the form of lecture and conference
fees, research grants, trips, meals, drug samples, and other freebies.
Concern about the influence this wields over some
of our nation’s physicians has caused some states to regulate the
practice, which will also be explored at the hearing.
The hearing will begin at 10:30 a.m. in Room 106 of
the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The proceedings will be video tapped
and made available online (see link below).
Providing testimony will be -
>> Dr. Jerome Kassirer, Distinguished Professor, Tufts
University School of Medicine; former Editor-in-Chief, New England
Journal of Medicine; author, On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity
with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health
>> Dr. Greg Rosenthal, retinal eye specialist;
founding member, Physicians for Clinical Responsibility
>> Dr. Peter Lurie, Deputy Director, Public Citizen’s
Health Research Group
>> Maine State Representative Sharon Treat, Executive
Director, National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices
>> Dr. Robert Sade, Chair, American Medical
Association’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs
>> Marjorie Powell, Senior Assistant General Counsel,
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
The written reports of testimony will be available
online after the hearing.
On the first panel, Dr. Kassirer will
provide an overview of how pharmaceutical companies influence the
prescribing patterns of physicians.
Dr. Rosenthal will share with the committee
conflicts of interest he has witnessed within his specialty.
Dr. Lurie will offer the results of a study
he coauthored for the Journal of the American Medical Association
examining state disclosure laws of drug industry payments to
physicians.
Lastly, Rep. Treat will discuss
efforts made by states to limit the influence of pharmaceutical
companies.
Representatives from both the American Medical
Association and PhRMA, the drug industry’s trade organization, will
testify during the second panel as to their self-imposed guidelines on
both accepting and giving gifts and fees.
The hearing will be Webcast in Real Video – for a
direct link -
Click here to view webcast.
For the hearing page, where links to the video and
written testimony will be available –
Click Here.
The committee Website:
www.aging.senate.gov
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