Why you shouldn’t blindly trust your doctor

Dr. David Eifrig, MD, MBA:

Doctors have the exact same problem as the rest of us…
They’re suckers for good marketing.

When I was in medical school and then residency, it became obvious that much of the “new knowledge” that doctors learned after graduation came during their annual business/vacation trips.

Several years ago, when I was doing a medical rotation in cardiology, nearly the whole staff went to a conference in San Diego (a nice, warm trip during the dead of winter). When they returned, the doctors started prescribing “statin” drugs like they were candy.

The reason was clear… 

At the conference, pharmaceutical companies reported data about how well the drugs worked and how they showed major reductions in heart disease. They also claimed that side effects didn’t appear… something we know now to be false.

A recent study out of the University of Minnesota showed that nearly one out of 10 serious side-effect reports are submitted after the required 15-day window to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

Drug companies receive the side-effect reports from physicians, but delay reporting them. Worse, companies’ reporting times tend to fall even later when fatalities are involved.

An average of 11 deaths a day from drug reactions are not reported in a timely manner.

Read that again… 11 deaths a day get reported to the drug companies, which don’t report the deaths to the FDA on time. Over the past 10 years, it was more than 40,000 deaths.

As an insider, I’ve seen the process repeat itself over and over again. Physicians regularly deny that they’d ever do that sort of stuff. It’s the same cognitive error that all humans make… “What, me? No, I’d never do that.” And please, doctors out there, don’t write in complaining… The facts are in.

The same Minnesota study showed that nearly two-thirds (63%) of the time, patients were not told about the potentially fatal or serious side effects and disabilities caused by the drugs.

Remember… your doctor learns this new stuff on a business trip to a warm beach in the winter months. And the marketing machines of Big Pharma spend a lot of time and money to teach your doctor what to prescribe.

The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) reports that last year, nine out 10 big pharmaceutical companies spent more on marketing than they did on research and development (R&D). Swiss health care giant Roche, the exception, spent $9.3 billion on research, but still spent an eye-popping $9 billion on marketing. 

Drug giant Pfizer spent just $6.6 billion on R&D, but $11.4 billion on marketing. That’s a lot of money spent teaching doctors.

Of course, it gets worse… Sometimes doctors get paid directly to be a spokesperson for a company…

Because of new laws requiring more transparency on this sort of craziness, you can now search the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) database called the Open Payments program. 

There, you’ll find doctors getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Big Pharma companies. One Illinois doctor received nearly $450,000 from Pfizer… And I would imagine that doctor now has a huge conflict of interest when prescribing medications to his patients.

So next time you visit your doctor and he gives you a drug prescription, be sure to ask him if he takes any money from the pill’s drug company. If he does, get a second opinion to make sure the prescription is right for you.

Here’s to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,

Dr. David Eifrig Jr.

http://thecrux.com/is-your-doctor-in-big-pharmas-pocket-heres-how-to-find-out/