How Much is Your Doctor Being Paid and Manipulated by the Drug Companies?

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http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/12/17/how-much-is-your-doctor-being-paid-and-manipulated-by-the-drug-companies.aspx

How Much is Your Doctor Being Paid and Manipulated by

the Drug Companies?

Posted

By Dr.

Mercola |

December 17 2010 | 1,481

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Many people are still completely unaware of the many ways

in which they are being manipulated into taking dangerous

and unnecessary drugs.

There's the $5 billion direct-to-consumer marketing, of

course, which is rather obvious. But physicians also play

a major role, and the manipulation that takes place on

this level is more obscure.

Drug reps often give 'gifts' to convince doctors to

prescribe the medications that they represent. These drug

reps usually have no medical or science education.

Instead, they're armed with some of the most potent brainwashing

techniques used throughout the world, which I'll

discuss in a moment.

Perhaps the manipulation technique most difficult to

detect is the 'education' given by doctors, to doctors.

Here, it's very easy to forget that the doctor presenting

the material is working entirely on the drug company's

behalf, and not as an independent, well-educated,

appropriate source of objective information.

And then there's the insidious Drug Industry sponsored

"education" that takes place in medical schools across the

US.

For example, out of Harvard's 8,900 professors and

lecturers, 1,600 admit that they or a family member have

ties to drug companies that could bias their teaching or

research. In 2008 alone the pharmaceutical industry

contributed more than $11.5 million to Harvard for

"research and continuing education classes."

All of these tactics (and others) are employed on a

massive scale in the name of "education," but nothing

could be further from the truth.

Is Your Doctor Paid to Promote a Drug?

Chances are your doctor has fallen prey to pharmaceutical

marketing tactics. Most doctors simply do not have the

time to research each drug, and rely heavily on

information from their pharmaceutical reps and from other

'experts,' i.e. doctors who are receiving significant fees

to talk about drug treatments.

Pharmaceutical sales reached a staggering $300 BILLION

last year, up five percent from 2008. It's no secret that

the industry spends big bucks on direct-to-consumer

advertising, but just how much do they spend on marketing

to doctors?

A LOT!

According to a new database

created by ProPublica, seven drug companies paid

$282 million to more than 17,000 doctors during 2009-2010.

The drug companies included in the database are:

Cephalon

&

Merck

Pfizer

GlaxoKline

AstraZeneca

Eli Lilly

Bear in mind that these seven represent just a small

portion of the drug industry as a whole!

In 2006, the pharmaceutical industry spent an estimated $16

BILLION on physician advertising. At the time,

that amounted to $10,000 for every doctor in the US.

How Does Drug Industry "Education" Help Protect and

Improve Your Health?

The drug industry insists these payments are for

"education," and improve patient care by keeping doctors

up-to-date. However, I agree with those who call it

bribery as it most definitely influences doctors'

prescribing habits, which can have a seriously detrimental

impact on their patients' health.

After all, prescription drugs

are responsible for an estimated 700,000 ER visits a

year due to adverse drug reactions. And adverse drug

reactions from drugs

that are properly prescribed and properly

administered cause about 106,000 deaths per

year, making prescription drugs the fourth-leading cause

of death in the U.S.

The truth is prescription drugs kill more than twice as

many Americans as HIV/AIDS or suicide. Fewer die from

accidents or diabetes than adverse drug reactions.

In light of those statistics, if all this money is spent

to educate and improve patient care, how well is that

working, you think?

These payments are entirely legal, and drug companies are

not even required to disclose who they pay or how much.

According to ProPublica,

all but two of the seven companies included in their

database were forced to divulge this information as part

of settlements and lawsuits.

This will all change in 2013 under the new health care

law, however.

Just How Much are Doctors Paid to Promote Drugs?

As discussed in the CNN video above, payments received by

individual doctors ranged from $100 to $300,000 since

2009.

384 doctors received payments greater than $100,000,

of which

43 doctors received more than $200,000 each

As mentioned earlier, these numbers represent payments

from just seven drug companies!

The industry claims it's worth every penny, which only

proves that these tactics most definitely increase drug

sales, by influencing physicians to change their

prescription habits.

But exactly how do they do it?

What makes otherwise well educated, intelligent doctors

turn their backs on their Hippocratic Oath (to do no harm)

and do the complete opposite by prescribing unnecessary

and potentially dangerous drugs?

Potent Brainwashing Techniques Applied

Unbeknown to many doctors, drug companies use some of the

most potent brainwashing techniques in the world,

including extensive detailing of their personality in

order for each encounter to be specifically tailored for

maximum effect.

Even those who suspect they may be subject to some

manipulation are mostly unaware of just how extensive and

detailed the drug companies' profiling of them is.

Not only are reps trained to assess their personality,

practice style, and medical preferences, they're also

instructed to sniff out personal information, like the

names of family members, birthdays, and family interests

-- as well as the physician's professional interests and

recreational pursuits.

All of this information goes into a database for future

reference. When the time comes to devise an "incentive" --

say a dinner, sporting event, or membership -- it is

custom tailored to suit the prey. It's all about

establishing personal rapport. Oftentimes doctors mistake

the reps' cleverly disguised interest in them as personal

friendship.

This is exactly how it's designed to work!

The database also reveals how many of a doctor's patients

receive specific drugs, how many competing drugs are

prescribed compared with the target drug, and how the

physician's prescribing habits change over time.

It tells them if a drug is "in favor" with a particular

doctor or not, and gives them the tools to cook up a

winning strategy for future manipulations.

Truly, the idea that pharmaceutical reps provide some

kind of valuable, informative service to physicians is

total fiction, created and perpetuated by the drug

industry, to keep this deadly,

but profitable, scheme going.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeavs_3SL2E & feature=player_embedded#!

Unwieldy Doctors Get the Big Hammer...

Any doctor who has the good sense and integrity to

question the information they receive and do their own

homework can easily end up on the drug industry's

Blacklist.

For example, last year it was discovered that drug giant

Merck

had a hit list of doctors to be "neutralized" or

discredited because they were speaking out against the

painkiller Vioxx.

It just goes to show that when persuasion tactics don't

work, the drug cartel will not hesitate to ramp up the

ante against dissenting doctors.

Time to Lift the Veil...

It's quite clear that both doctors and the public at

large are being manipulated for the sake of corporate

profits. The pharmaceutical industry is not really about

promoting health, but making money off disease. And when

one market begins to dwindle, they simply create

a new one, by inventing yet another disease. Usually

by "upgrading" a common symptom into disease status...

But you don't have to fall victim to these tactics. All

that is needed is to see them for what they are: manipulative

marketing strategies.

Folks, you CAN Take

Control of Your Health. You don't have to put up

with this kind of insanity any longer. By educating

yourself on the tactics employed, you can learn to see

right through the propaganda, and stop being deceived by

drug company lies and deceptions.

Then, tell your family, friends and neighbors, and be a

source of true education.

Collectively we can stop this unwise and foolish

expenditure of resources on treatments that do not work,

or worse, are completely unnecessary and cause further

harm. It is a massive vs. Goliath battle, but there

is no doubt in my mind that the victory will eventually be

ours.

How to Survive in a Disease-Promoting Paradigm

Remember, there are a number of basic strategies you can

use to avoid getting sucked into the current disease-care

paradigm. Here's a summary of my top 10 Healthful

Lifestyle Strategies:

Eat a healthy diet that’s right for your nutritional

type (paying very careful attention to keeping

your insulin levels down)

Drink plenty of clean

water

Manage

your stress

Exercise

regularly

Experience healthy doses of sunlight

Limit

toxin exposure

Consume healthy

fat

Eat plenty of raw

food

Optimize insulin

and leptin

levels

Get plenty

of sleep