Health Care

Two years ago lawmakers in Minnnesota imposed a $50 limit per year on the amount of food or gifts drug marketers are permitted to give doctors when they make sales calls. In the time since then, many doctors have either routinely refused to meet with drug marketers or have banned their visits all together. On the whole it was found that the amount and the type of prescriptions written have not changed very drastically based on whether or not doctors receive gifts, it was shown however that for children, antipsychotic medication was more frequently prescribed by doctors that had recieived some type of gift from drug companies. Obviously the drug industry is a huge business, with many aspects that seem to overlook what should be the end goal of treating the patient, it is not that surprising to me that drug sales and in some cases drug prescriptions are influenced even on such a low level. At the same time its pretty outrageous that a child would be prescribed antipsychotic medication when possibly not necessary because the doctor received money from a company or the sales person brought some pizzas along with them to their office visit.