Glaxo to Stop Paying Doctors for Drug Promotion

Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline has announced it will no longer pay health care professionals to promote its products or the diseases they treat to “audiences who can prescribe or influence prescribing.” Glaxo also plans to stop compensating its sales representatives based on the number of prescriptions that doctors write. Some experts believe the changes are designed to deflect attention away from recent scandals involving the company, including a $3-billion fraud settlement in 2012 and ongoing bribery allegations in China. In 2014, drug and medical device companies will be required to report and disclose all payments to physicians and the information will be displayed in an online government database that you will be able to search. You can also search ProPublica's database to see the disclosed payments made to physicians in your state.