Acceso usuarios
Paul D. Thacker
Last September, the federal government rolled out a Web site that offered a searchable database of the $3.5 billion in payments that drug and device companies provided to physicians and teaching hospitals in the last half of 2013. Data for 2014 is still being accumulated, but the breadth of information already compiled has given unprecedented insight into a medical economy that dispenses money into the hands of thousands of doctors who turn around and dispense medical advice to patients. Since this Web site went live, reporters from across the country have been combing through the data, producing dozens of stories about physicians with lucrative arrangements. Here, Thacker investigates the database's conflicts of interest in the field of journalism that should prompt the profession to lighten up its own disclosure policies.
