Minnesota Doctors on Drug Company Drip

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An examination of records from Minnesota, where legislation requires drug company payments to doctors to be disclosed, reveals that between 1997 and 2005 over 5,500 medical professionals in the state were paid a total of over $57 million. Gardiner Harris and Janet Roberts report that "another $40 million went to clinics, research centers and other organizations. More than 20 percent of the state’s licensed physicians received money. The median payment per consultant was $1,000; more than 100 people received more than $100,000." Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, who worked as a sales representative for Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson until 2002, explained that "the vast majority of the time that we did any sort of paid relationship with a physician, they increased the use of our drug ... I hate to say it out loud, but it all comes down to ways to manipulate the doctors."