Sunshine Act Reveals Pharma & Device Paid out $3.5 Billion to Physicians: How Much Was Paid to Media?
Updated: July 1, 2015
UPDATED October 1, 2014 : “Out Of Context” is just PRSpin
September 30, 2014
Johnson & Johnson Advertising Budget Breakdown
Drug and medical-device companies paid at least $3.5 billion to U.S. physicians during the final five months of last year, according to the most comprehensive accounting so far of the financial ties that some critics say have compromised medical care. WSJ
The figures come from a new federal government transparency initiative. The 2010 Affordable Care Act included a provision dubbed the Sunshine Act which should also include what the industry paid to media.
Click here—>CMS Open Payments to find out about specific physician payments.
And Click here—->How to protect yourself as a patient using the tools from the Sunshine Act.
UPDATED: Fierce Pharma Marketing
A few things are certain about the Sunshine Act data that hit the Internet Tuesday afternoon. One, it’s incomplete. Two, it’s controversial. Three, the numbers are pretty staggering, with $3.5 billion in payments to 546,000 doctors and 1,360 research institutions over a 5-month period.
The biggest payment to a single physician? Roxane Laboratories, a division of Boehringer Ingelheim, paid a San Antonio, TX, doctor $262,000 for clinical trial services. In second place, Vertex Pharmaceuticals ($VRTX), with a $233,000 consulting fee to a Massachusetts doctor. Drug in question? Not identified. Meaning of either of these two payments? Unclear.
#PRSpinUnSpun Out of Context / Open Payments / Research Institutions
Physicians and companies are concerned this list might make them look badly or unethical so they’ve spun the phrase “out of context,” hoping people won’t apply logic to a situation. The context is regardless of what the payment is for in some cases it’s unethical, illegal, certainly a conflict of interest and dangerous to the American public.
Research Institutions
Well that sounds very nice and like it’s helping out the community but in reality there is an industry wide belief that whatever products medical residence use during their residency at teaching or research institutions they are likely to use when out on their own. Kind of like how people in the toothpaste industry know that what you used as a child is likely what you’ll use in adulthood. It’s grooming the business and nothing more.
Toddthedog
Hi Melayna
This I thought is an article you’d love and can do something with!
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/supreme-court-calls-lying-by-politicians-an-expression-of-their-religion
Great articles keep up the good work!
Melayna Lokosky
Thanks TTD-I will check it out-I always appreciate the support and the suggestions. In fact here’s one of your other suggestions, thank you! https://www.killingmycareer.com/mmpiher-method/forced-accountability-vs-small-psychological-interventions-creating-corporate-change-vs-individual-change/
Pastor Jim
Hacking “smart” med devices:
http://news.yahoo.com/u-government-probes-medical-devices-possible-cyber-flaws-052534350–finance.html
It’s hard to tell how much of this is Homeland Security’s constant campaign for job security versus reality. The fact that some of these devices can connect out via wireless (and thus be connected to) AND that they have computer code running in many of those little chips in there tends to make me think there may be something to this. If so…yikes.
Melayna Lokosky
Thanks for sharing that article and while I’m all for transparency I do think that sometimes giving criminals ideas they’d not yet thought of is just as sociopathic. Homeland could have reached out to companies (like Medtronic) and made inquiries to work behind the scenes to ensure it didn’t happen (solve a problem before it becomes one). This reminds me of the WTC 1993 truck bomb in the parking garage where US analysts said just putting bombs in the parking garage wouldn’t get the job done that explosions would have to occur higher up in the structure. Two planes high enough for those arrogant analysts? To beat a sociopath you have to think like one, anticipate what they’d do and make sure you already have a solution to whatever problem they’d create; but, giving them ideas just makes more work for the ethical.