It turns out that 69 Wisconsin physicians were on Pfizer’s payroll during the last half of last year, collecting just over $200,000 from the world’s biggest drug company, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Friday. http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/90323677.html
Pfizer last week released a list of doctors across the nation that it had paid as speakers, researchers and consultants. The group included Pamela Wilson, a retired Madison doctor who got paid $42,000 as a Pfizer speaker, and Daniel Duffy, a Cedarburg family practitioner who received $17,000.
According to the Journal Sentinel, Pfizer speakers averaged $3,400 for that period, the last six months of 2009.
Duffy was also on Eli Lilly’s payroll, getting $50,000 as a speaker for that drug maker last year.
Drug companies hire doctor speakers to help convince their fellow physicians to write more prescriptions for brand-name drugs.
So far five big drug companies, including Pfizer and Eli Lilly, in the past few months have revealed lists of the doctors who they pay as speakers and consultants.
The 69 Wisconsin doctors being paid by Pfizer received from $1,000 to $42,000.
Almost 200 Wisconsin doctors, and 15,000 nationally, appear on the lists the five drug makers have so far made public.
