Pharmaceutical Company Gifts: From Voluntary Standards to Legal Demands

Dresser discusses state and federal governments' pressing for further change on the issue of relationship between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. She illustrates this by one federal and two state initiatives, which in different ways authorities are trying to discourage certain arrangements between industry and clinicians prescribing drugs to patients. The legal actions were triggered by worries about the conflict of interest that exists when pharmaceutical companies offer benefits to physicians and others with control over medication purchases.