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Even A Small Meal For A Doctor Can Tip The Balance For A Brand-Name Drug
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... -name-drug

Evidence is mounting that doctors who receive as little as one meal from a drug company tend to prescribe more expensive, brand-name medications for common ailments than those who don't.

A study published online Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine found significant evidence that doctors who received meals tied to specific drugs prescribed a higher proportion of those products than their peers. And the more meals they received, the greater share of those drugs they tended to prescribe relative to other medications in the same category.

Here's the full article in JAMA.
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... id=2528290

This thread is about payola for doctors in the form of free meals. Free meals are just the tip of the iceberg. This study shows that far from doing no harm, doctors not only agree to free meals but prefer them to reading about side effects. They will blindly prescribe, and feel entitled to freebies at least, if not outright bribery.