March 15--Doctors in Oregon received more than $21 million from pharmaceutical companies since 2009 to market drugs, consult and do research.
Is your doctor one of them? A new database posted by the nonprofit investigative journalism shop ProPublica makes it easy to check.
Payments to doctors are under a microscope because of revelations over skewed drug studies in which researchers took manufacturer money. Companies continue to be sued for promoting unapproved uses of drugs -- often using doctors as paid speakers. And doctors who prescribe lots of a particular drug sometimes are being paid by the drugmaker.
But the increased scrutiny has made some doctors complain that things have gone too far. Pritham Raj a specialist in psychosomatic medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, took in the most in promotional speaking fees of all doctors in Oregon last year: $99,500.
Though the school recently banned faculty from promoting drugs, Raj says there's nothing wrong with sharing knowledge: without paid speakers, some doctors wouldn't get needed education.
Raj gave about two dozen talks last year about a particular anti-psychotic medication on behalf of AstraZeneca but says the information he gives is unbiased -- it's just a good drug. "I'm not ashamed of what I do," he says.
But last year, his supervisor told him she viewed him differently upon learning of his moonlighting. "If you're getting all this money I think it compromises you," he recalls her saying.
"It hurts in some ways," he says. "I pride myself on my sound ethics."
Similarly, concern over scrutiny made Jay Rosenbloom, a Lake Oswego pediatrician, stop taking funds from vaccine manufacturers. In the last three years he received more than $58,000 from the vaccine and pharmaceutical company Merck.
He says he didn't want any questions as he leads the charge in Salem on a bill that would make it harder for parents to opt out of child vaccinations. The bill would help sell vaccines, but he says the money never changed his message.
"I'm saying what I believe, whoever is paying me," he says, but adds publicity of payments can lead to unfair perceptions. "Making this information public has its pros and cons."
Still some doctors who receive money for consulting and research say it's the promotional speaking fees that should raise more eyebrows. That's what drove OHSU to ban faculty from accepting drugmaker payments for marketing talks -- but not research and consulting -- due to the perception of a conflict of interest.
Bill Wilson, a psychiatrist who also teaches at OHSU, received $56,828 from Janssen Pharmaceuticals for consulting -- on software that will help psychiatrists be better prescribers with certain types of injectable anti-psychotic drugs.
He agrees the increased publicity of such payments could make doctors less likely to do such work, hurting innovation. He wishes the public had better tools to tell which funding is for promotional purposes, and which is simply education. But he says he welcomes the scrutiny nonetheless.
"I wouldn't want people to think that I'm a pitchman," he said. "I don't mind the sunshine. That's probably the best way for people to have confidence."
The ProPublica database, called Dollars for Docs, is updated from last year, with an improved search function and more information. But it comes with caveats. The data is pulled from the websites of drugmakers, some of them required to post the information based on past legal settlements. But only a fraction of companies do so -- 15 in all, covering 47 percent of the U.S. market. Not only that, but doctors have not had a chance to review the data for accuracy.
The availability of this data will only increase. Next year, the federal government will require all drugmakers to report sums paid to physicians.
-- Nick Budnick
Twitter @nickbudnick
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