More med schools, hospitals ban gifts from pharmaceutical companies

An increased number of U.S. medical schools and hospitals have begun to ban meals and other gifts from pharmaceutical companies to physicians, residents and medical students "in response to concerns about whether the pharmaceutical industry's expensive marketing efforts influence which drugs doctors prescribe and whether those costs get passed on to patients," the AP/Newport News Daily Press reports.

Last year, Stanford University Medical Center and the Yale Medical Group implemented policies that ban meals and gifts to physicians. Henry Ford Health System this year implemented a similar policy, which also requires pharmaceutical company sales representatives to schedule appointments before they visit physicians.

In addition, the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles in November 2006 implemented a policy that bans all meals and gifts to physicians and bans pharmaceutical company promotional materials in patient areas.

Justin Sanders, national coordinator of the PharmFree campaign at the American Medical Student Association, said, "The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars a year to influence us," adding, "It only takes one lunch to make a medical student feel entitled."

However, Ken Johnson, a senior vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said, "In the end, pharmaceutical marketing is one of several important ways for health care providers to receive the information they need to make sure medicines are used properly and patients are safely and effectively treated."

"While the gift ban is straightforward, there's some disagreement among medical schools on whether to accept free drug samples," the AP/Daily Press reports.

The Stanford policy bans prescription drug samples from pharmaceutical companies to physicians; the Yale policy allows such samples but cautions physicians about distribution of expensive brand-name medications.

Andrew Leuchter, a UCLA professor who helped develop the Geffen School of Medicine policy, said that the policy allows prescription drug samples from pharmaceutical companies to physicians only when patients cannot afford the medications or the treatments offer a "significant advancement in patient care."

He added, "They're of tremendous value to patients, especially indigent patients" (Chen Sampson, AP/Newport News Daily Press, 1/18).