Doctor takes "march of shame" to atone for drug company payments

doi:10.1136/bmj.39437.473576.0F

BMJ 2008;336:20-21 (5 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39437.473576.0F

Observations

Medicine and the Media

Doctor takes "march of shame" to atone for drug company payments

Jeanne Lenzer, medical investigative journalist, New York, jeanne.lenzer@gmail.com, Shannon Brownlee, senior fellow, New America Foundation, shannon.brownlee@comcast.net

One US doctor has severed all his ties to drug companies andcome out in a blazing public attack on industry funding of medicaleducation. Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee report

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

A US psychiatrist has vowed to go on a "march of shame" forpayments he received from a drug company in return for medicaleducation talks he gave to other doctors. He now promises togive free "undrug" talks to reverse the effects of the "inappropriateprescribing" he may have caused.

Writing in the New York Times (www.nytimes.com, 25 Nov 2007,"Dr Drug Rep"), Daniel Carlat, assistant clinical professorof psychiatry at Tufts School of Medicine in Boston, has givena candid account of his role promoting the antidepressant venlafaxine(marketed as Effexor XR in the United States by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals).Carlat was flattered when a Wyeth drug representative askedhim in 2001 to give talks to doctors about the drug for thetreatment of depression. It didn’t hurt that he wouldbe paid $500 (£250; ${euro}$ 350) for a one hour talk over a freelunch—and $750 if . . . [Full text of this article]