American Crossroads Attacks Harry Reid For Not Bringing Nevada Enough Stimulus
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Pharmaceutical companies ply doctors with freebies—everything from free lunches to cash payments to fancy junkets—to encourage them to prescribe their brand of drugs. The cost of these giveaways is usually considered "education" not "marketing
In Vermont, in two years alone, $2.28 million in such payments were disclosed under that state's public disclosure law -- & another $3.41 million in payments was shielded from disclosure on "trade secret" grounds.
If they spend nearly $6 million in a small state like Vermont, imagine how much they're spending across the country? Imagine is all we can do because the vast majority of states don't require disclosure. And those are the legal payments.
According to a 2004 article in The NYT, "Pfizer agreed to pay $430 million & pleaded guilty to criminal charges involving the marketing of the pain drug Nuerontin.
AstraZeneca paid $355 million last year & TAP Pharmaceuticals paid $875 million in 2001; each pleaded guilty to criminal charges of fraud for inducing physicians to bill the government for some drugs that the company gave the doctors free." A new study estimates that drug companies spent $57 billion dollars on marketing to doctors in 2004 alone.
About Karl Rove
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