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Lessons from Jon Barron
Drug Company Money & Medical Opinion
In this week's excerpt from Lessons from the Miracle Doctors, Jon Barron examines if drug company money buys medical opinion. 
"And what about the millions of dollars spent on "buying" the good opinion of medical doctors? In September 2000, both Reuters and USA Today reported that 54 percent of the experts that the FDA asks for advice on which medicines should be approved had a direct financial interest in the drugs or topics they were evaluating. These financial conflicts of interest typically included stock ownership, consulting fees, and/or research grants. Understand, these experts are hired (that is, paid) by the FDA to advise on which medicines should be approved for sale, what the warning labels should say, and how studies of drugs should be designed. The experts are supposed to be independent, but over half the time they have a direct financial interest.
And for achieving such results and establishing such influence in the government decision-making process, the major executives of the pharmaceutical companies are obviously well rewarded. In fact, the five most highly paid drug company executives pocketed more than $183 million in compensation in 2001. But that doesn't count stock options. In 2000, the chairman and CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb, for example, held unexercised options valued at an additional $227.9 million."
We hope you enjoyed this week's excerpt from
Lessons from the Miracle Doctors. Next week, we'll take a look at who pays for the unhealthy relationship between drug companies, medical doctors, and government regulators. If you enjoyed this excerpt and would like to get a copy of the book for yourself, please visit one of the following resources.
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