Stanford Bans Drug Company Freebies

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Under a tough new code of ethics all staff and students at Stanford University's medical school, hospitals and clinics will not be able to accept any gifts from drug company representatives. The new policy comes into effect on October 1. "It's about time that this happened," said Alan Cassels, coauthor with Ray Moynihan of "Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients." Harvard Medical School professor Jerry Avorn told the Los Angeles Times that "even if the object is of trivial monetary value, it creates the notion of a friendship. They wouldn't be investing in those things if there weren't a payoff." Scott Lassman, a spokesperson for the drug industry's peak lobbying body, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, complained that restrictions on sales representatives' access to doctors "would be a serious mistake."