Drug Firms, Doctors, Defend Kickbacks and Bribes As Legal and Normal

Source: New York Times, December 26, 2002 "Drug companies and doctors are fighting a Bush administration plan to restrict gifts and other rewards that pharmaceutical manufacturers give doctors and insurers to encourage the prescribing of particular drugs. ... In contending that the proposed federal code of conduct would require radical changes, those opposing the change discuss their tactics with unusual candor and describe marketing practices that have long been shrouded in secrecy. Drug makers acknowledged, for example, that they routinely made payments to insurance plans to increase the use of their products, to expand their market share, to be added to lists of recommended drugs or to reward doctors and pharmacists for switching patients from one brand of drug to another. ... But a coalition of 19 pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Schering-Plough, said the Bush administration proposal was 'not grounded in an understanding of industry practices.' The payments and incentives to which the government objects are standard in the drug industry, they said."