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Timothy N. Gorski, MD
Grand Prairie, Tex

JAMA. 1990;263(16):2177.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

I found the conclusions of the article entitled "Doctors, Drug Companies, and Gifts"1 absurd. The authors, in fact, confuse an analysis of their own ideas about drug companies' gifts with an actual analysis of this 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 . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Deputy Editor (West), and Don Riesenberg, MD, Senior Editor.

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