Articles published in both the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association are showing that drug companies are spending big bucks try to influence physicians to buy their brand of drugs over the competitors even though there are rarely any real clinical benefits to a new drug. Many of the companies deny this practice is really effective but it makes you wonder why they keep spending more each year on it if it doesn’t work. Doctors claim they aren’t influenced but all the research suggests otherwise.

If the doctors groups like the American Medical Association are unwilling to force their members to change this practice and deny entrance to their offices to big pharma reps then legislation is in order. We need our physicians to be impartial and objective, not beholden to the purveyors of gifts and free lunches. We need a change in the way our country goes about its health care and we need a change now. If not we will continue to slip down the rankings of countries when it comes to delivering health care to our citizens.