NEW YORK TIMES: For more than five decades, the blood thinner Coumadin was the only option for millions of patients at risk for life-threatening blood clots. But now, a furious battle is underway among the makers of three newer competitors for the prescription pads of doctors across the country.
The manufacturers of these drugs — Pradaxa, Xarelto and Eliquis — have been wooing physicians in part by paying for meals, promotional speeches, consulting gigs and educational gifts. In the last five months of 2013, the companies spent nearly $19.4 million on doctors and teaching hospitals, according to ProPublica’s analysis of federal data released last fall.
The information, from a database known as Open Payments, gives the first comprehensive look at how much money drug and device companies have spent working with doctors. What it shows is that the drugs most aggressively promoted to doctors typically aren’t cures or even big medical breakthroughs. Some are top sellers, but most are not… (more)
EDITOR: Patients should evaluate recommendations by doctors, hospitals and drug companies with the same prudent skepticism they have for used car salesmen. What once was a supportive relationship has now in many cases turned adversarial, with the patient just a means to earning the million dollars or more a year.
The patients best friend happens to be the Affordable Care Act which seeks to eliminate the current profiteering by placing the economic incentive on keeping people healthy and avoiding unnecessary treatments.
