Is it ethical for a doctor to talk up a drug in exchange for payments from drug companies?

You may be unaware of a practice that is considered 'ethical' conduct between drug companies and doctors. Doctors are offered compensation to give talks to other doctors about the benefits of certain drugs.

Here's an interesting story from a doctor on the receiving end of drug company 'incentives'. The story begins:

On a blustery fall New England day in 2001, a friendly representative from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals came into my office in Newburyport, Mass., and made me an offer I found hard to refuse. He asked me if I’d like to give talks to other doctors about using Effexor XR for treating depression. He told me that I would go around to doctors’ offices during lunchtime and talk about some of the features of Effexor. It would be pretty easy. Wyeth would provide a set of slides and even pay for me to attend a speaker’s training session, and he quickly floated some numbers. I would be paid $500 for one-hour “Lunch and Learn” talks at local doctors’ offices, or $750 if I had to drive an hour. I would be flown to New York for a “faculty-development program,” where I would be pampered in a Midtown hotel for two nights and would be paid an additional “honorarium.”

Read the whole story on the New York Times site (login may be required), and better understand how some doctors are influenced to prescribe drugs to their patients.

In Top Psychiatrist Didn’t Report Drug Makers’ Pay, the NYT describes a case where a top researcher failed to disclose a small fortune in payments from pharmaceutical firms (more on this at Doctors, Drugs, and Money).

So: Are doctors the drug industry's sales force? Who 'sells' you your meds? The pharmacy just fills the orders. They don't place the order (by specifying the specific drug), the doctor does.