Problems with pushing pills

Something I came across on the problems with how the drug companies push their pills.

A standard, long-term practice that has come under growing fire in the past year:

Pharmaceutical companies paying doctors a fee of several hundred dollars a day to allow salespeople to shadow them as they see patients, a practice called a preceptorship. Normally, doctors will speak to sales reps on the fly, for 10 minutes between patients. A preceptorship gives a sales representative up to eight hours with a physician, during which the two talk about their families and hobbies. Drug companies and some doctors say it is an important educational tool, but others believe it is an invasion of patients' privacy and a ploy by drug companies to promote their products.

The American Medical Association has passed a resolution saying doctors should not allow drug company representatives to shadow them "without the full knowledge and informed consent of patients"

There have been incidents where patients have disrobed for the doctor, in front of the pill salesman, and they didn't find out who the guy was until much later. Lawsuits ensued.

All of this is occurring as federal prosecutors increasingly investigate -- and win multimillion-dollar settlements from -- drug companies for paying doctors illegal inducements to prescribe their medications. The federal cases haven't focused on preceptorships. But documents unsealed last year in one case against Parke-Davis, now Pfizer Inc., suggested that some representatives use shadowing more to sell drugs than to learn.

8 hours of a doctor's time certainly would increase the prospect for increased sales.