No More Goodies for Doctors From Drug Makers..

[SoCalDem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/business/31drug.html?hp

No More Goodies for Doctors From Drug Makers

By NATASHA SINGER
Published: December 30, 2008

To Lehman Brothers, Linen ’n Things and the blank VHS tape, add another American institution that expired in 2008: drug company trinkets. Starting Jan. 1, the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to a voluntary moratorium on the kind of branded goodies — Viagra pens, Zoloft soap dispensers, Lipitor mugs — that were meant to foster good will and, some would say, encourage doctors to prescribe more of the drugs.

No longer will Merck furnish doctors with purplish adhesive bandages advertising Gardasil, a vaccine against the human papillomavirus. Banished, too, are black T-shirts from Allergan adorned with rhinestones that spell out B-O-T-O-X. So are pens advertising the Sepracor sleep drug Lunesta, in whose barrel floats the brand’s mascot, a somnolent moth.

Some skeptics deride the voluntary ban as a superficial measure that does nothing to curb the far larger amounts drug companies spend each year on various other efforts to influence physicians. But proponents welcome it as a step toward ending the barrage of drug brands and logos that surround, and may subliminally influence, doctors and patients. “It’s not just the pens — it’s the paper on the exam table, the tongue depressor, the stethoscope tags, medical calipers that might be used to interpret an EKG, penlights,” said Dr. Robert Goodman, a physician in internal medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

In 1999, Dr. Goodman started, No Free Lunch, a nonprofit group that encourages doctors to reject drug company giveaways. “Practically anything you can put a name on is branded in a doctor’s office, short of branding, like a Nascar driver, on the doctor’s white coat,” Dr. Goodman said.

snip...


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Those Viagra pens must have been "something"..My doctor never game me on of them ....just the run-of-the-mill arthritis med pens:evilgrin:

[Berry Cool]

1. I bet a Viagra pen always popped up when you clicked it.

No more writer's cramp, and the ink never runs out.

But if you find yourself writing for more than four hours at a time, consult a physician.

[Atman]

11. I swear to god, I have one!

(Except it's for Levitra). My wife is an APRN with prescription authority, so our house is riddled with this shit. The Levitra pen is a classic...it's tiny, too small to write with. Until you click the button...then it sloooowly expands into a full size pen. Viagra gave out indiscreet little blue key chains with a secret compartment for stashing a couple of the little blue pills. You know, in case you suddenly find yourself in a "situation" and don't want to have to be reachin' for a scrip bottle.

We have a Prozac zen fountain.

We have a dozen travel mugs of all shapes and sizes, all with drug names on them.

Honestly, the only people this hurts are those in the adware industry. These trinkets don't sway providers (ethical ones, anyway) into prescribing drugs people don't need. Get real. If they want to make some meaningful reform, get them to stop the television advertising of prescription drugs directly to consumers. If you need a cheesy television commercial to get you to "ask your doctor" about your leaking anus or constant throbbing in your pelvis, you're a fucking moron anyway.

.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Didn't we already go through this YEARS ago?? The old is new

again.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOXeyPejTWI

[ikojo]

3. Drug rep pens were always sweet

Much higher quality than the crap handed out by the insurance companies.

[SoCalDem]

4. they do last forever, don't they

kind of like those skinny little black ballpoint US Govt pens:)

[rainbow4321]

10. No kidding.....nurses grab them by the handful..we are a little OCD about those pens

Least I do/am and every other nurse I've worked with... Nothing is sadder for a nurse when a good pen (like those) start to show signs of running out of ink. You try to convince yourself it WILL still write, it WILL (shake pen, scribble, scribble...must..still..work..it fits SOOOO nicely between my fingers.)
Then reality hits when you look at the last sentence you tried to write with the dried up pen and there is no ink on the page, just an illegible imprint on the paper because you've pressed so hard on it, trying to make it write.
And heaven help the co-worker who accidently lifts the pharm pen from you..I've reclaimed a pen like that a month after I "lost" it (co-worker pulled it out to write something in front of me).

[DRoseDARs]

5. That picture you have at the bottom of your post was totally photoshopped...

There were only three shoes being launched. The fourth failed to fire. :)

[SoCalDem]

6. Yes, but the shoe manufacturer's ad guy thought 4 shoes were better

than three, since many in the Middle east still have both legs..

[RB TexLa]

7. They are voluntarily banning doing something that cost them money. Wow.

[SoCalDem]

8. saints..aren't they?

like giving up watermelon for lent ( at least before we had year-round watermelons)

[4 t 4]

9. Could this be due to something Obama is going to pass

because no one in the profit world gives up anything just because, just for scuse. I choose to believe it is so. Everything is going to change, right, it is. Please say it is.

[Atman]

12. It doesn't cost them a penny. You and I pay for it.

It's ADVERTISING, and its completely tax deductible.

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