As a pharmaceutical industry first, AstraZeneca is stopping payments to doctors for attending international medical conferences. They are making it sound like they are leaders who want to do the right thing...it only took them half a century to figure this out. Do you think this is a move pressured by something other than their benevolence? Their commenton this topic is that, "we start from the position that our products stand on their own merits." I wonder how they explain that the Big Pharma paid $15 billion in penalties to the US government alone for violations of laws and regulation that helped them sell more product.
Big Pharma spends about $61,000 per doctor per year for a wide range of reasons and also spends twice as much on advertising and promotion than for research studies. They also spend in excess of $5 billion a year on direct to consumer ads. Who are they trying to fool!
