NY Times: Unease on Industry's Role in Hypertension Debate

Unease on Industry's Role in Hypertension Debate

By STEPHANIE SAUL
Published: May 20, 2006

The seven dinners at Ruth's Chris Steak Houses around the country are just one example of why the small medical society, the American Society of Hypertension, has been in the midst of a dispute over the influence of drug industry money.

"This is about the monetarization of medicine," Dr. Michael H. Alderman, a past president of the organization, said in a recent interview.

The dinners promoting a new definition of high blood pressure illustrate connections — among the pharmaceutical industry, academic physicians and societies that formulate opinion — that can ultimately affect patient treatment. And the dispute within the society reflects a growing unease that industry money is influencing scientific discourse in medical societies and elsewhere.

NY Times: Doctors Object to Gathering of Drug Data

Doctors Object to Gathering of Drug Data

By STEPHANIE SAUL
Published: May 4, 2006

Although virtually unknown to consumers, the information has long been considered the most potent weapon in pharmaceutical sales — computerized dossiers showing which physicians are prescribing what drugs. Armed with such data, a drug sales representative can pressure a doctor to write more prescriptions for a name-brand medicine or fewer orders for a competitor's drug.

But now a rebellion is under way by some doctors, who consider the data-gathering an intrusion that feeds overzealous sales practices among the nation's estimated 90,000 drug company representatives. Public officials are also weighing in. A vote on a state bill to clamp down on the practice is scheduled for today in New Hampshire, and similar bills have been introduced in other states, including Arizona and West Virginia.

LA Times: Medicare in poor financial health, trustees say

Medicare in poor financial health, trustees say
Its problems will eventually be worse than Social Security's, an annual report warns. But some observers see a manufactured crisis.

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writers
May 2, 2006

WASHINGTON — The financial condition of Medicare is growing progressively worse and its problems will eventually eclipse those of Social Security, the trustees of the government's two biggest social programs reported Monday.