[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 68 (Tuesday, June 6, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       HALT PHARMACEUTICAL LOBBYING TO PHYSICIANS TO INCREASE R&D

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                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 6, 2000

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record several examples of 
unsolicited drug company ``freebies'' a Florida physician received in 
just one week. Over the years, I have received numerous examples of 
doctors being given free meals, cocktails, travel subsidies and 
recreational events--all financed by pharmaceutical companies. Drug 
companies spend billions a year promoting their products to physicians 
through these very questionable tactics instead of using this money for 
life-saving research and development.
  Last January, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) 
found that more than $11 billion is spent each year by drug companies 
promoting and marketing their products--with about $8,000 to $13,000 
spent per year on each physician. JAMA concluded that present 
physician-industry interactions adversely affects prescribing and 
professional behavior.
  Additionally, a March USA Today article described a growing trend 
among pharmaceutically-financed advertising and marketing firms to 
sponsor physician continuing medical education (CME) courses that 
doctors in 34 states need to keep their licenses. These marketing firms 
are paid by drug companies that often hire faculty to teach these 
courses to push their sponsors' products.
  Such evidence of pharmaceutical waste, the adverse impact of drug 
company gifts on prescribing practices and the need for increased 
pharmaceutical R&D led me to introduce H.R. 4089, the Save Money for 
Prescription Drug Research Act of 2000. My bill would deny tax 
deductions to drug companies for certain gifts and benefits provided to 
physicians (other than product samples) and instead encourage drug 
companies to use those funds for a much more important use--
pharmaceutical research and development.
  Research and development is much more important than drug company 
promotions. Our nation has reaped great rewards as a result of 
pharmaceutical research. Pharmaceutical and biotech research have led 
to the discovery of lifesaving cures and treatments for ailments that 
would have cut lives short in earlier years. But drug companies can do 
more. Think of all the additional lives that could be saved if the 
pharmaceutical industry dedicated the resources now spent on physician 
promotions to R&D.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress has a responsibility to put an end to this 
pharmaceutical ``giftgiving'' and to encourage research and development 
of life-saving drugs. The drug industry's lobbying of physicians, which 
clearly leads to distorted, inappropriate, overprescribing of drugs, 
must be brought to an end.

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