Published 26 October 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4409
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4409

News

Merck discloses $3.7m paid to US doctors for speeches over three months

¹ New York

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

Merck listed $3.7m in payments to US medical experts for speaking on behalf of the company or its products between 1 July and 30 September of this year. It followed Eli Lilly in disclosing payments to doctors who speak for companies.

Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have promised to make similar disclosures, according to the Associated Press news agency (www.ap.org, 19 Oct 2009, "Merck starts revealing payments to doctor-speakers").

The list on Merck’s website discloses payments to 1078 doctors and other experts who took part in Merck speaking engagements during July-September. The list includes the names of the individuals, the number of events at which they spoke, the payments they received, and the general topics on which they spoke (such as "diabetes," "HPV," or "respiratory").

Merck said in a press statement: "On average, speakers participated in two programmes each with the average payment totaling $1548 per programme."

Merck said that . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Gagging for it

Tony Delamothe
BMJ 2009 339: b4444. [Extract] [Full Text]

Online poll

Find out more here>> and here>>