Despite "efforts to curb drug companies' avid courting of doctors, the industry is working harder than ever to influence what medicines they prescribe," the Washington Post reports. The Post cited a study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine that surveyed 1,662 physicians from November 2003 to June 2004 (Lee, Washington Post, 4/29). The study, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School, found that 94% of respondents had relationships with pharmaceutical companies in which the companies provided them with food and beverages, medication samples, and other gifts and payments (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 4/26).

In addition, the Post cited two other studies published last week in PLoS Medicine. One of the studies found that the estimated 100,000 pharmaceutical company sales representatives who visit physician offices seek personal information they can use to form relationships with physicians. The second study found that visits from pharmaceutical company sales representatives prompted almost half of 97 physicians to increase prescriptions of gabapentin, an anti-seizure medication.

Eric Campbell, lead researcher of the NEJM study and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said, "We now know that virtually every doctor in the United States has some form of relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. They are common" (Washington Post, 4/29).