Story Highlights
- Financial relationships between physicians and drug companies have existed for decades.
- Ties between doctors and the pharmaceutical industry have raised conflicts of interest concerns.
- The Physicians Payment Sunshine Act has stirred controversy around conflict of interest policies.
It is no secret that the medical field is heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. For many decades, health care professionals and pharmaceutical companies have enjoyed cozy financial relationships.1 Pharmaceuticals continuously interact with medical doctors (MDs) and Doctors of Osteopathy (DOs), the two types of physicians who are licensed for prescribe drugs in the U.S. in order to persuade them to promote and prescribe drugs and vaccines to patients. Physicians are then compensated in many forms for promoting patient use of pharmaceutical products.