According to the report, pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly use physicians as part of these speakers bureaus to present company-provided information to their colleagues about a drug’s uses or dosing information. While wide-spread, many criticize these relationships, saying physicians merely act as “hired advertising guns” for the pharmaceutical companies.
Boston Medical Center said that it prohibits physicians from participating in these programs unless the physician determines the content. While many physicians argue that they create the slides and presentations they give as part of these programs, Eli Lilly’s Web site said that it alone provided the content to physicians, according to the report.
Eli Lilly is one of the first pharmaceutical companies to publicly disclose its payments to physicians in order to promote greater transparency and trust in the industry, according to the report. A law passed in Massachusetts last year will require all pharmaceutical companies to disclose such relationships by July 2010.
More hospitals in Massachusetts are barring their physicians from participating in speakers bureaus as of Oct. 1, according to the report.
Read the Globe’s report on the Massachusetts physicians paid by Eli Lilly.
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