This kind of like bribing, I think this should be regulated as this doesn't make it a fair market for all pharmaceutical companies thus decreasing competition and our chance to get better medicine.

Yes off course! Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive, while we are creative. It is doomed to fail, while our gifts and responsibilities call us to achieve. It sabotages trust and weakens the bonds of spirit and humanity, without which we perish.

@justtryme90 gifts 🎁 are life coins with two faces; it can make good and it can corrupt minds.

Thanks.

Corruption American-style can result in trillion-dollar gifts to pharmaceutical companies, the purchase of elections with massive campaign contributions, and tax cuts for millionaires as medical care for the poor is cut.

yes

It has a lot of effect on prescription

Good post, I am a photographer, it passes for my blog and sees my content, I hope that it should be of your taste, you have my vote :D greetings

thanks for this tips and my goal is to keep myself healthy..

Upvoted. I'm going to resteem this now :]

Great read, as a pharmacist that's worked in the medical field for close to a decade, though anecdotal I have seen the effects of these "gifts." 

My solution, get the gov't out of healthcare!

This is a protocol worldwide it seems. In the third world countries like the Philippines some doctors prescribe expensive drugs to patients without looking at the financial capability of the patient so long as he prescribed the drugs from certain pharma company who promised him incentive through the med reps.

Probably the biggest kinds of bribery come in the form of trips, lunches, and conferences. The most disturbing part is that disclosure only makes matters worse.[<sup>1</sup>](https://doi.org/10.1086/426699)

Some of the doctors I know are so overworked and feel so underappreciated that things like pens or mugs might do the trick.



1 [Daylian M. Cain , George Loewenstein , and Don A. Moore , "The Dirt on Coming Clean: Perverse Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest," The Journal of Legal Studies 34, no. 1 (January 2005): 1-25.](https://doi.org/10.1086/426699)

I just try to find the medication they can afford. Sometimes these companies (often to promote their product) will have samples. For an asthmatic who is being denied mediacation after medication from an insurance company, sometimes those samples could literally be a life changer until they qualify for something else. If the studies are sound for a companies drug then I may be more inclined to read the literature on that drug. That could bring bias. However, at the end of the day my main goal is to have a patient be compliant with a medical plan, not a specific drug if multiple options are available. Generic is fine with me for a majority of drugs.

Yeah i think it has a lot of effect on the prescription.

This is a quite interesting topic and I strongly think it does. 5 years ago Turkey was having a lot of problem about this topic. They were sending holiday tickets all 5 stars hotels , Huge plasma screen Tv's and if you are slighlty famous doctor with his/her own clinic then even bigger stuff was coming. However thankfully goverment regulated a quite strict law inorder to prevent this bribery it is hard to see things like that in Turkey anymore but I still think companies doing it instead of doing more obvious way  they turned this system in to real bribery but as I said I never seen a doctor got punished for doing this.

Hello @justteyms90

I strongly gifting influences most doctors prescription decision. Yes as much as that is true, there are exceptions — people of high moral inclinations – would rather not receive such gifts. Unfortunately, they only constitute a tiny fraction of the community.

This is indeed a thought provoking post. Thanks for sharing.

@eurogee

My father is a doctor. God I miss all the swag and trips on 5 star hotels he used to take me when I was a child. And I loved all the freebies; food, pencils, mags, notepads, watches, all kinds of shit. We even got a expensive laptop in 2000 XD

Unfortunately the good swag has been seriously cut down in my country.  Now it's only cheap pens and stupid shit. And no free trips for family members, they now have to pay :(

Congratulations @justtryme90, this post is the sixth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superhero or Legend account holder (accounts hold greater than 100 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superhero and Legend account holders during this period was 18 and the total pending payments to posts in these categories was $832.64. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, [click here](www.steemit.com/steemit/@bitgeek/payout-stats-report-for-28th-october-2017--part-ii). 

If you do not wish to receive these messages in future, please reply stop to this comment.

Really good post!!

Sure it is fairly obvious that doctors are being incentivized to prescribe specific drugs, but the key for me is why this is happening, whose fault is it, and whose duty (if anyone) is it to stop it?

I am surprised there haven't been more 'Big Pharma must go' responses here - just the one, where the poster didn't seem too objective, as you noted...

I don't think Pharma companies are bad. Many are publically held, all of the large ones are, and they have a duty to their shareholders. The impression I get is:
1) Early research is primarily driven by the science - finding targets and novel MoAs with limited consideration at this stage of commercial potential
2) Around PhIIa, commercial and market access are very heavily involved, and decisions are made now according to very different criteria. Otherwise promising therapies may be stopped as there is no business case for them. A shame, but as above, these companies are profit-making enterprises
3) At launch, commercial run the show and the goal is maximizing company value. It seems that regulations here are ever tightening - in my view it is not up to the pharma companies to make the laws, it is up to them to obey them or if they so choose, to have their own rules which are more stringent than the laws

A key problem in my view is also the general public, who by and large want everything but are not prepared to pay for it. There seems to be an expectation that companies develop new treatments and then just give them away - that is not a sustainable model

On the positive side I am noticing a slow move towards new models that are outcomes-based - companies get paid for outcomes, not pills. This makes sense, but I think there is tons still to be worked out and it will at best be a series of very slow steps

Could go on forever, but I don't actually know much about this - will stop now before I say something totally wrong...

Cheers

Good article.

Another problem is pharmaceuticals being advertised on tv.  I have personally heard physicians on conference calls I've been on complain of patients that come in and demand a drug they saw on tv.  When the doctors tell them they don't need that drug, the patient demands it or they will find another doctor.

My unprofessional approach to pharmaceuticals is to get diagnosed by a competent doctor, take the medication as recommended after you have discussed with your doctor what the side effects might be, search information on dietary changes and natural supplements that might help that condition, try only those things that are safe to restore health.

When you are under a doctor's care, If there is a supplement that you want to try, don't hide it from your doctor.  Doctors tend to tell patients that they don't need that supplement.  But the question to ask your doctor is:  "Are there any contraindications for me to take this supplement?"  And let your doctor see the ingredients of the supplement.  Your doctor can let you know if there is anything harmful in it.

There is a lot of information on the internet.  Not all of it is true.  Be sure to search for agreeable and disagreeable information from credible sources.  Do your homework and read from many sources, and don't believe everything.  Your and your family's health is important.  

And don't forget to pray.