Editorial: Drug sales and ethics

Friday, March 4, 2005 | 4:44 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 5 - 6, 2005

Prescription drug sales in the United States enjoyed double-digit increases from 1995 to 2003, bringing annual sales to more than $200 billion. Marketing blitzes by drug manufacturers helped spur the increases. One facet included manufacturers giving handsome rewards to doctors -- in the hope that doctors would prescribe their brand of drugs. Doctors routinely received gifts ranging from free dinners to exotic trips, just for listening while the drug companies pitched their products. When this costly and unethical relationship was called into question three years ago, the pharmaceutical industry promised to stop showering doctors with expensive gifts and the American Medical Association came out against doctors accepting them.

In a New York Times story last week, however, Dr. Janet Woodcock, an acting deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said that such marketing abuses continue. She also said the FDA has no authority to police such practices. But the American Medical Association, and the drug companies, too, can and should enforce the ethical standards they've agreed to. A doctor's free trip to Bimini should not be a factor in which drugs he prescribes or how much they cost their patients.