[LibWhacker]

UC barred gifts over a year ago. Silly, if you ask me. I don't know of any doctors who would allow this sort of thing to influence the way they treat their patients.

[King Moonracer]

So I guess that leaves the miniskirt business suit and the KMDAFM Stiletto heels

[MNJohnnie]

I am curious. Does this include the free samples drug companies hand out. I can understand wanting to avoid the appearance of impropriety but banning the drug samples seems to be going overboard.

[proudofthesouth]

I used to work for a very large group of doctors. You'd be amazed at the stuff they are given!

[utahagen]

I know. I don't begrudge a doctor the occasional lunch or notepad. This is much ado about nothing.

[FreePaul]

...will bar physicians working at its two hospitals from accepting even the tiniest gifts from drug industry sales representatives to try to eliminate corporate influence...

Corporate influence is newspeak for bribery. If they have a good product they should be able to get doctors to use it without any payoff. Of course they could try to bribe the end user with rebates, discounts, promises, etc.

[VOA]

"Gift giving creates a reciprocal obligation that is a powerful force, and
pharmaceutical companies know this very well," said David Magnus,
director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics who helped write the new policy...

I bet there are plenty of Stanford MDs (e.g., proctologists)
that are just praying that David Magnus makes an appointment!

OK, I'm not saying the MDs would act on any unpleasant thoughts...

[wyattearp]

...and publishing articles in science journals that were ghost written by corporate authors.

They should be fired for that. Period. Publishing articles with their name when it is somebody else's work? That is obscene! How can it even be reviewed if nobody knows who really wrote it? What if somebody else wants to follow up on it with another line of research, and needs to ask a question of the author, only to find out that the author didn't do the research?