Are our doctors open to bribes? For every 25 new patients, the doctors
gets a luxury trip
BERLIN (Bild-Zeitung / August 17, 2001) - Grim suspicions about German
doctors in the scandal over the drug Lipobay. The pharmaceuticals group
Bayer is alleged to have bribed doctors with luxury trips, to persuade
them to prescribe the anti-cholesterol drug to their patients, reports
the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The report says that in the spring of 1999,
Bayer promised doctors a trip on the Orient Express if they prescribed
Lipobay for at least 25 patients. In Germany alone, the pill has been
linked to at least seven deaths.
Have German doctors been irresponsibly prescribing the pill Libobay
to their patients? Did they even allow themselves to be seduced into
writing prescriptions by offers of free holidays?
The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports that physicians used copies of
prescriptions to show that they had put patients onto Lipobay. As payment,
they were invited for a trip on the luxury train the Orient Express by
the Leverkusen-based drugs giant. Bayer claims the train trip was an "information
event for southern German doctors".
Prescriptions in exchange for presents - do German doctors take bribes
from the pharmaceutical industry?
The drug reviewer Dr. Ellis Huber, ex-President of the Berliner Ärztekammer
(Medical Practitioners' Board) says: "Yes. Doctors' training or
their journals are usually paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. Many
drug companies also try to influence doctors with pleasure trips."
Doctor's goodwill vs. luxury - BILD has discovered other examples:
- In June 2000, a drug company invited about 40 German rheumatologists
to Nice. They and their partners were put up in the finest hotels;
sightseeing tours and luxurious gala dinners were thrown in. The official
reason:
participation in a "European rheumatology congress". Sole
obligatory date: a three-hour symposium on the medication, given by
the host company.
- In the autumn of 2000, another company took at least 100 dermatologists
and their spouses for a weekend at Berlin's luxury Adlon hotel. Generous
programme of entertainment (opera, river cruise), short seminar programme
in morning about products of the pharmaceuticals group.
And the pharmaceutical giants have other inducements to offer our doctors:
- Payments for so-called "administration observations", whereby
drugs salespeople try to persuade the doctors into "trials".
The only aim is that the drug should be prescribed to as many patients
as possible. For each "study report", the doctor receives
DM 100 to 300.
- Bonus systems: another company promises doctors that anyone treating
a large number of patients with the firm's products will receive
bonus points. Depending on the points total, there are family holidays
(Tenerife,
Hong Kong) or test drives in BMW or Mercedes cars.
Meanwhile, the Federal Health Ministry is threatening to fine Bayer
DM 50,000 because the group has infringed notification requirements.
A study
for the Ministry, dated 15th June, indicating an increasing occurrence
of Lipobay side-effects was only passed on by Bayer to the Medicines
Institute at the beginning of August, after withdrawal of the drug. How Bayer bribed the doctors. They were to prescribe the scandal drug
Lipobay as often as possible and take part in "use observations".
For every patient taking Lipobay, there was an attractive bonus. |
