Doctors, Drug Companies, and Gifts

To the Editor.— I found the conclusions of the article entitled Doctors, Drug Companies, and Gifts1 absurd. The authors, in fact, confuse an analysis of their own ideasaboutdrug companies' gifts with an actual analysisofthis practice. Where is the evidence that giving a physician a pen or book emblazoned with the drug company's name or product(s) causes increased prescribing? It is more reasonable to suppose that these petty objects that physicians can well afford to purchase for themselves only facilitate the drug companies' getting enough attention for their products for them to be fairly considered as treatment options. Physicians are unlikely to prescribe drugs on the strength of an advertisement alone, and manufacturers cannot be faulted for responsiveness to physicians. The authors are inappropriately agitated over what is only another human side of the practice of medicine. Perhaps smiles, handshakes, and other tokens of goodwill may