BMJ  2003;326 (31 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7400.0-g

Editor's choice

Food, flattery, and friendship

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

This week's cover has already caused some consternation in the BMJ's offices. One or two people had heard that it depicted pigs and reptiles. Yet the verbal description "pigs and reptiles" sounds much harsher than the rather loveable creatures drawn by Malcolm Willett. And that illustrates one of the underlying messages of this week's theme issue on the relationship between doctors and the drug industry. This relationship isn't a Manichean battle between good and evil but the entwinement of individuals from different backgrounds and value sets who get to know, and often to like, each other and therefore want, as humans do, to reciprocate friendships and favours. "Food, flattery, and friendship are all powerful tools of persuasion," quotes Ray Moynihan in his two part article on entanglement.

Moynihan's articles (pp 1189, 1193) set the scene for this theme issue. His first explores the sorts of relationships . . . [Full text of this article]

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