Paying for Drug Approvals — Who's Using Whom?

Interview with Jerry Avorn and Mark McClellan on the Prescription Drug User Fee Act and its effects on drug safety (10:23)Download Years ago, an administrator at a community hospital explained to me how well his institution's grand-rounds program worked. “The drug companies find the speakers, pay their honoraria, and provide free food for the doctors, which helps a lot with attendance,” he said. “It works well for us, especially with our budgets so tight.” Yet those lunches were actually quite costly for the hospital: attendees at such events predictably go on to prescribe the products promoted there — which is precisely why the drug companies so willingly pay for these programs.This penetration of commerce into the province of science isn't . . .