by Sheila Kaplan (Statnews.com)
Washington – Physicians across the United States routinely offer medical advice on social media — but often fail to mention that they have accepted tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars from the companies that make the prescription drugs they tout.
A STAT examination of hundreds of social media accounts shows that health care professionals virtually never note their conflicts of interest, some of them significant, when promoting drugs or medical devices on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The practice cuts across all specialties.
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But Reuben Guttman, an attorney in Washington who specializes in food and drug law, said the system leaves patients vulnerable to misinformation.
“Doctors who accept these dollars and then turn around and promote on social media corrupt the market for honest medical information,” Guttman said. “And drug companies that pay these doctors are similarly poisoning the market for honest information.”
Read the full article at statnews.com.