In late January a comedian hosting the UK Pharmaceutical Marketing Society's Annual Advertising Awards ceremony joked [3] that "twenty years ago it was all lap dancing and champagne for the doctors. These days you're lucky if you can give them a three-star hotel and a f***ing biro." Not so, it seems. Last Friday the British drug industry lobby group, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry [4] (ABPI) announced that it had suspended Abbott Laboratories [5] from membership for six months for breaching its self-regulatory marketing code. ABPI's media release [6] didn't specify what activities had been complained about. However, buried in a 112-page report [7] (pdf) it was revealed that in 2004 company representatives had taken dozens of hospital doctors greyhound racing, a senior manager had taken a health professional to a lap-dancing club and a senior manager provided senior hospital consultants with centre court tickets to watch tennis at Wimbledon.