Drug Makers Say Goodbye To Swag In 2009
Beginning tomorrow morning, drug companies will stop peppering doctors' offices with branded pens, bandages, tongue depressors, stethoscopes, calipers, mugs, prescription pads, soap dispensers, and t-shirts.
What won't stop, according to critics of the industry: free dinners, payment for consultations, or the $16 billion spent annually to hand out free drug samples:
“We have arrived at a point in the history of medicine in America where doctors have deep, deep financial ties with the drug makers and marketers,” said Allan Coukell, the director of policy for the Prescription Project, a nonprofit group in Boston working to promote evidence-based medicine.
One side-effect of the voluntary ban is that swag companies—"providers to the world's landfills"—stand to lose around $1 billion, or about 5% of their annual income. (And you know what that is going to do to swag prices!) But hey, at least you won't feel like you're at a NASCAR event the next time you're waiting on the examination table.
For a good look at the wide variety of promo items drug companies hand out, pay a visit to the Drug Rep Toys blog.
"No Mug? Drug Makers Cut Out Goodies for Doctors" [New York Times]
(Photo: Drug Rep Toys)
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Comments:
I hate it when doctors have some of that swag from drug companies. Go ahead and just be honest. Just go ahead and write with a pen or on a clipboard or whatever that says "When I prescribe you something, it's not because I honestly believe it will work for you, it's because I'm being pressured to prescribe this a certain amount of times a month."
Not to say that it won't still happen...
I am glad they are not stopping with the free samples. I have benefited many times from my doctor giving me the free samples instead of a costly prescription.
This many times over.
My doctor regularly gives me a lot of my hypothyriodism med, about 6 months worth, pretty much until my next check-up, when he will again load up me. I love it!
So, they'll still be on the take; it just won't be obvious.
Hmmm....
@DaisyDawgy: My grandmother's doctor does that all the time because he knows she can't afford all of her meds.
My mom and her husband run a catering company. Their biggest clients are drug reps. They make a fucking fortune off catering lunches for doctors. A little side effect of this is that my mom has a motherlode of pens and pads from all sorts of different drug companies .. I guess that'll stop now :)
I'm not as bothered by the swag as I am by the free lunches, conferences, paying doctors to put their names on fake articles, etc. I feel like my doctor is probably less influence by a pen for prozac than by a trip to Hawaii or whatever.
(And I, too, am in favor of the free samples.)
i think i must be the only person in the free world who HASNT gotten samples from a doctor (and i work at a doctor's office). as far as the swag goes, the most the drug reps give us are pens. i will admit that those grip pens are pretty comfy :o)
@DaisyDawgy:
Damn Skippy! In my kids' younger years, their docs would set aside more expensive samples for the families that couldn't afford it and were allergic to the cheap meds. Kept me from having to make a heat v. medicine decision a few times.
Quite frankly, FUCK YOU DRUG REPS. You unethical scum. I look forward to the day when the direct-to-consumer/maketing junket circus is put to a halt.
I think its a damn shame that some cutesy bimbo who strolls in twice a week with a catered lunch has any sway whatsoever over my healthcare.
My wife is a nurse for a prominent surgeon, and thankfully he doesn't put up with many of these shenanigans. Still, her office is littered with garbage branded by drug companies.
I LOVE the pic for this article.
Just what sort of reflexes are you supposed to test with that thing?
@tmed:
As a clinic person it would be nice if they did away with the samples and went to the vouchers that many companies are using. They still get the same amount but it is dispensed by a pharmacy. Most physicians just do not know all the ins and outs of drugs and that makes it more dangerous to dispense in the clinic setting.
I haven't noticed any swag at all in my dr's office or an affiliated specialist. But they're all part of a giant HMO, so maybe they don't allow that.
My aunt gets a lot - nurse at a cancer hospital. I have many of the tote bags, photo frames, etc but will not mind at all if the knick-knacks cease.
If you're interested in pharam-doctor conflicts or - even more exciting - conflicts of interest in govt & journals & universities resulting from huge payments or industry-funded research, you should definitely subscribe to the Integrity in Science Watch.
Email newsletter that is sent out about once a week, from the Center for Science in the Public Interest. I have no affiliation w them; just love the newsletter. A nice focus on transparency & medical ethics, and a lot of good information.
I assume the hot saleswomen program won't stop though? (wondering if people know about this trend that started a few years ago?)
Another patient here in favor of free samples!
NASCAR event?
Don't give them any ideas; next it'll be ad patches on the white coats!
@Xkeeper: Also requires "hand wash" to be some kind of noun phrase. Based on a Google search, seems to be a regionalism for hand sanitizer.
In related news, unemployment has risen to 78% in several Chinese industrial cities.
I am a librarian at a hospital and we have had to cancel a few of our subscriptions, and turn a few free ones as well, because the medical school with which we are affiliated began banning pharma money in 2007. No drug adds, no drug logos, and all authored articles must claim any affiliations or study support. The higher ups and professors seem to feel that many of the current docs are a lost cause when it comes to pharmas, but that the residents and med students should be shielded/kept away as much as possible. But this is just one hospital's experience...
@Eyebrows McGee: I agree 100%.
(Plus, my doctor used to give me a handful of the freebie pens whenever I stopped by. I'll miss you, free pens!)
I think that my favorite drug company swag that I've seen was a box of tissues with Viagra's logo on it.
I worked as a drug rep for a year before I decided I was doing Satan's bidding. If you talk to older doctors they will tell you that they used to look forward to the "detail man" coming once a month. Now the companies have people go once a week or sometimes twice a week, and they hire 10+ people per territory where they used to be one or two.
This used to be an honest and reputable job. Thanks Pfizer for messing it all up.
I once saw Nuvaring stirrup covers. So you can get a Pap Smear and still get marketed to. Nothing is sacred.
@jchennav: Thanks, I hadn't seen that site before. Now I'm wasting time browsing for next year's Christmas gifts. I already sent the Viagra reflex url to a friend so she can get it for me as a stocking stuffer.
I am thinking about getting their How To Drive Like A Maniac book. I think the defensive driving classes would be much more informative if they showed some of the book's information.
Thank god for free drug samples.
A few years ago I had the sinus infection from hell, it just kept getting worse and worse for a few weeks. My mom aksed a doctor if there was anything he could do during one of her routine checkups, and the doctor gave her free samples of that 5 day course of drugs (whos name I don't know) it kicked the crap out of my sinus infection and I was saved a probable case of pnemonia and God only knows what kind of medical bills on my back for the rest of my life.
@Xkeeper: Yep. One of the few newspapers that appears to be financially safe... for now. Get back to me in a week on that.
The major problem is that most people fall for the drug manufacturers' marketing bullcrap. People should know that generic meds work just as well. The rest is all mental, placebo stuff. Plus, drug companies need to cut the nonsense with their commercial and their closing tag "ask your doctor about ...." Oh, they've actually changed that too, maybe due to pressure from other non-doctors care providers. Now they say "ask your prescriber about ..."
Yes, medical facilities, regardless of size, are in bed with the drug manufacturers. Just like mechanics are with the Dept of Transportation of every state that requires annual inspections. Trust me, it's not a coincidence that most, if not all, the inspections stations are also repair shops.
My mother's indigent patients shall continue to receive the samples that they so desperately need. The office and house may eventually be free of coffee mugs, pens, calendars and other junk. YAY!
This problem is hardly unique to the U.S. In Japan, all doctors prescribe at least 3 kinds of medication for every problem both because the drug companies bribe them and because they get kickbacks from prescriptions. Patients don't complain because the national health insurance pays most of the tab, but it's clearly an abuse of the system and a way of polluting the bodies of patients with useless medication. And drug companies here also inundate doctors with gifts and swag. One of my students is the wife of a doctor and she is so overwhelmed by it that she carts some of it to me to get rid of pens, notepads, cord winders, towels, etc. that they couldn't use in several lifetimes.
Doctors are essentially customers to pharmaceutical companies. They can choose to be ethical and act on their knowledge of medicine, or they can choose to be persuaded by bribes to prescribe unnecessary medication. I don't like what the pharmaceutical companies do, but I blame the doctors as they're the ones choosing to inflict the medicine on patients for their benefit.
@Garbanzo: Which it is, considering I've seen a few brans of soap here called "hand wash".
Nothing different from "body wash" soaps, really.
@Eyebrows McGee: As someone who knows to many doctors, I understand the lunches/dinners thing. Most doctors I know work 60+ hours a week, why should they take time away from their families to hear about some drug? The meals thing is a necessary evil, because lots of doctors wouldn't bother or have time to learn about all the new drugs on the market without the added incentive of food.
The articles thing is unethical, but food/confrences are a necessary learning tools, because I don't know if you realize this but doctors, especially in oncology, have to digest a lot of new information every year. They have to balance the time it takes to do this with actual practice time and other things(family, personal time, etc.)
@Eyebrows McGee: The dinner is only once, but he uses the pen every day. If you see a name over and over every day, it takes a normalizing effect and you are more likely to prescribe it.
As long as the "drug makers" keep the reps very attractive women...
@Eyebrows McGee: If the free swag didn't work, they wouldn't hand it out. As ByTheSea points out, the goodies are not to convince doctors the drug is the best (that's what the free-lunch bribes are about); they're to keep the drug name in front of the doctor's and staff's faces all day long.
@Alice Arrington Radley: My mom works at a psychiatric practice. We haven't bought pens, calendars, notepads, staplers, or other office supplies in years. Apparently, the reps are told to clear the warehouses, so they bring in huge bags of the swag, which the offices horde like plywood in a hurricane zone.
Well on the downside: this volentary ban may just stop up my long time tradition of reading off the names of new drugs in doctors offices and the going home to research the drug. but on a good note: This may make doctors a little less beholden to the drug companies...wihich we can all agree is a good thing!
@Con Seannery: Yea, it was great. When I returned to school, didn't have to purchase any post-its or pens. FYI: the doctors I worked with didn't care a rat's hiney about the swag, it was the poor office workers who don't have any control over what is prescribed who use the stuff.
And doctor's should be paid for consultations, they're giving their medical opinion.
I hate this. My mom works at a medical practice in medical records, their office lives off of this swag. And it travels home, too. All of those comfy pens are great. The calendars are helpful. And, to be honest, in all likelihood, the swag has much less effect than the commercials telling the people what they need to tell their doctor to give them, regardless of whether they need it. How about they stop the TV ads, keep the swag that only reminded patients of what pills they wanted to pop, and we can all go on with our lives.
I, for one, am deeply saddened to hear that the swag is going bye-bye. My partner worked for Pfizer for a few years and between him and a doctor friend, we now have the Viagra bathroom.
It's a little half-bath painted Viagra blue that is filled with the crap that Pfizer gave doctors: pens, tissue box, soap dispense, a tie, Matchbox car, antibacterial gel, scrubs, flashlights and so much more. Oh! The highlight is a little computer that a patient is supposed to use to self-diagnose if he needs Viagra. According to the computer, I've yet to meet anyone who didn't need it.
Aww, NOW where are we going to get our hand wash at the paper?