In the latest look at the financial ties between physicians and drug makers, a new analysis finds that oncologists who received payments for such activities as consulting or speaking were more likely to prescribe medicines sold by those companies.
Specifically, doctors who received either research funding or general payments — which included meals and travel expenses — were nearly twice as likely to prescribe a kidney cancer drug sold by a company that marketed the medicine. And the odds were 29 percent higher that doctors would prescribe a chronic myeloid leukemia sold by a company that provided such payments.
The analysis, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is the latest effort to examine the financial relationships between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry. The interest reflects ongoing concern that such ties may unduly influence medical practice and research which, several years ago, sparked a Congressional probe that led to the creation of the federal government’s OpenPayments database.
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