Anyone who believes “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” clearly hasn’t seen catering companies and restaurants haul in free meals for hungry hospital or medical clinic staff nationwide—paid for by pharmaceutical companies that in return get to shill their newest drugs. Ethically questionable, such free lunches could soon be things of the past at UVA Hospital.
A committee at the hospital is poised to release a set of practical and ethical guidelines for dealing with pharmaceutical representatives: They’re likely to include a ban on complimentary lunches.
“There’s pretty much a feeling among people that the free lunches look slimy, feel slimy,” says Brian Wispelwey, a professor of internal medicine at the hospital and one of eight doctors on the committee. “We need [medical students and interns] to learn about the pharmaceutical community, but in an ethical way.”
Pharmaceutical companies legally can provide hospitals and other medical facilities with meals, free drug samples, and merchandise like pens and notepads, with the hopes such freebies increase prescriptions for their drugs. Numerous studies agree: The influence of drug companies alters treatment decisions of doctors, according to a January article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
If the committee recommendations are approved, UVA joins only a handful of elite hospitals to ban so-called “drug rep lunches” and formally tighten ethical rules, including Stanford, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. While the UVA hospital doesn’t keep records on the number of lunches or cost, the University of Michigan Health System estimated the price tag at $2.5 million annually when it banned them in 2005.
Madaline Harrison, who heads the review committee, stresses that meals are only a small part of the proposed guidelines. Also being considered is whether industry reps should make appointments (they don’t) and whether doctors should accept free drug samples for patients unable to pay high drug costs (most do).