TRANSPARENCY HAS the potential to ensure more careful medical decision-making by both doctors and patients. That’s why Washington policy makers are right in moving to require drug and medical device makers to disclose most payments to physicians. Some such payments — money for research, honoraria for speaking, fees for consulting, dollars for travel and entertainment, and the like — can add up to tens of thousands of dollars. Sums of that sort can, consciously or otherwise, affect medical judgments.
About a quarter of all doctors take money from drug companies or device makers. And studies suggest that doctors who take payments for advice, consulting, speeches, and the like are more apt to prescribe pharmaceuticals in problematic ways than those who do not.
