Drug Shills Dispensing Pills [View all]

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from In These Times:


Drug Shills Dispensing Pills
A psychiatrist questions Big Pharma’s influence on her profession.

BY JEAN KIM


In 2009, as an eager young psychiatry professor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, I presented to faculty on the need for a moral dimension to psychiatric diagnoses. I was laughed out of the room.

One psychiatrist, a schizophrenia specialist, said he didn’t see the point. The acting medical director said he felt I’d called him immoral. A top research psychiatrist said, incredibly, “Morality and psychiatry should be kept separate.”

So a few years later, when ProPublica launched its Dollars for Docs database to track the drug company money doctors were taking, I typed in their names. The acting medical director received $12,550 in 2010 and 2011 for speaking gigs. The researcher received more than $212,489 between 2009 and 2012 for speaking gigs and consultations. The schizophrenia specialist made more than $323,300. And the database only includes disclosures from 17 of the more than 70 drug companies in the world. According to Dollars for Docs, hundreds of thousands of doctors have raked in a total of more than $4 billion since 2009, with the top earner, psychiatrist Dr. Jon Draud, netting at least $1.2 million.

As a psychiatrist who “grew up” in the last decade, I was not surprised.

I started my residency training in New York City in 2000. Lunches and dinners provided by drug company reps were astaple of my diet. For a hungry, harried resident on a paltry salary, a free pit stop at a steaming Chinese buffet was heaven. All around me in Manhattan, investment bankers and freshly minted lawyers were living it up, and I admit that I wanted a piece of the pie as well. By mid-decade, academic psychiatry had become glamorous. A resident might schmooze with a drug rep and get invited to a trendy spot—Nobu, Olives, Tao—where we could imbibe Sex and the City-style cocktails and sample the freshest sushi. Drug reps, selected for their looks and charm, were the popular, beautiful best friends we geeky docs never had. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17353/drug_shills_dispensing_pills