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Pharmaceutical companies’ sway in the medical industry extends far beyond the regulation of natural remedies. In fact, their marketing techniques have become much more precise and aggressive such that physicians are solicited frequently and have become highly influenced by the drug industry. Pharmaceutical companies now request clinical "perceptorships" in which doctors are briefed by pharmaceutical sales representatives on the benefits of the company’s product. Often, this "briefing" is a day-long experience where the representative observes the physician’s patient interactions "as an education experience" and the physician obtains an "honorarium" from the pharmaceutical company as compensation. Pharmaceutical companies "advertising" expenditures exceed $6 billion dollars yearly on free samples used to encourage physicians to prescribe their products. These expenditures in conjunction with "honorariums" given to doctors are often referred to as sophisticated forms of bribing.
In April 2007, The New England Journal of Medicine released results from a national survey of physician-industry relationships conducted in late 2003 and early 2004. Information was collected about the "financial associations with industry" of more than three thousand physicians. The survey also identified the factors that forecasted such associations between doctors and pharmaceutical industries. Results from the journal stated, "Most physicians (94%) reported some type of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and most of these relationships involved receiving food in the workplace (83%) or receiving drug samples (78%)." The journal also reported that industry representatives met more often with family practitioners than any other physicians.
Based on the information provided by the NEJM, almost half (48%) of those who admitted to receiving benefits from pharmaceutical industries served as consultants or advisors advocating for medical companies. Ties with pharmaceutical companies
seem to deteriorate the impartiality of physician diagnosis and prescription. It is probable that 21st century physicians have become the modern-day "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydes"—overwhelmed by both the marketing demands of industry and assuming the role of intermediary between those same industries and their potential consumers. Slowly, such a system of interplay between the FDA, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors strips away systems of checks and balances.
The public does not seem to be fooled by the "harmless relationship" between pharmaceutical companies and physicians, however. A New York Times article reported on findings in a recent poll: "85 percent of respondents thought it ‘not acceptable’ for doctors to be paid by drug companies to comment on prescription drugs. [They also said] such payments would influence the decisions that doctors made about patient care." Unfortunately, patients’ suspicions of medical advice makes them much more reliant on the media—namely pharmaceutical companies’ newest communication asset: direct-to-consumer advertising.
