An alert FrontBurnervian sends along a link to a new ProPublica database filled with data about doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Says ProPublica:
Drug companies have long kept secret details of the payments they make to doctors and other health professionals for promoting their drugs. But 12 companies have begun publicizing the information, some because of legal settlements. ProPublica pulled their disclosures into a database so patients can search for their doctor. Accepting payments isn’t necessarily wrong, but it can raise ethical issues.
You can search your doc’s name. Or you can just search for everyone in Dallas and then order the results by amount of payment, which is what I did. Have a look for yourself. Congrats to Dr. James Dale Griffin, the top individual on the Dallas list. Last year Dr. Griffin took $122,000 in cash from Pfizer for speaking. Quite a haul.
Update (11:31 a.m.): As several people have pointed out in the comments, I missed some money. Dr. Griffin took some meals and travel from Pfizer, too. Tack on another $26,452 for a total of $148,452 in 2010. Nice!
