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Area doctors paid $125K from drug companies

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By Ben Sutherly, Staff Writer Updated 12:46 AM Thursday, October 29, 2009

DAYTON — Pharmaceutical companies have begun publicly disclosing payments they make to physicians and other health-care professionals for speaker fees, educational services and consulting.

In the Miami Valley, at least 28 physicians and health-care professionals — or groups with which they are associated — received $125,000 in payments during three-month periods from Eli Lilly & Co. and Merck & Co. (Lilly’s payments are for the first quarter of 2009, while Merck’s are for the third quarter of 2009.) More than $90,000 of those payments went to nine physicians.

Top local recipients during those three-month periods include the Institute for Psychiatric Education in Dayton and Dr. Amita Patel ($32,400); and Skyedancer, LP and Dr. Lisa Lichota of the Pain Evaluation & Management Center of Ohio in Centerville ($19,500). Neither returned calls seeking comment on Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Lilly began disclosing its payments July 31 at lillyfacultyregistry.com. It paid out about $22 million nationwide for the first quarter of 2009. Merck & Co. began voluntarily disclosing its payments on Oct. 19 at merck.com/corporate-responsibility; its third-quarter payout was about $3.7 million nationwide. Other drug companies are expected to follow suit.

The disclosures are part of the pharmaceutical industry’s push to be more transparent, Eli Lilly and Merck said. They are supporting a federal Physician Payment Sunshine Act that would create uniform standards for disclosing relationships between the industry and doctors.

Lilly spokeswoman Carole Puls also said the Indianapolis-based firm is required to make the quarterly disclosures as part of a “corporate integrity agreement” reached with the U.S. Office of Inspector General.

Lilly and Merck said doctors have been largely supportive of the move.

Merck spokesman Ronald Rogers noted company-sponsored events for doctors play an important role in medical education.

Dr. Lawrence Mieczkowski, an internist in Kettering who specializes in cardiometabolic disorders and received $4,225 in payments from Merck during the third quarter of 2009 for diabetes education, said he favors the disclosures to stem abuse. But he said doctors like himself need honorariums when educating their peers to make up for lost time with patients.

The content of presentations is highly regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, he noted, adding that he doesn’t work with drug companies that try to influence his message.

“I’ve declined to work with companies that have that attitude,” Mieczkowski said. “When I’m speaking on a particular company’s products, I’m going to talk about other companies’ products as well.”

The disclosures are a positive development, said Bill Hayes, president of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio.

“We always have to be careful that if someone’s getting money from working with any vendor that it’s not resulting in them giving advice that might be limited and ignoring legitimate other options,” he said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or bsutherly@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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