Study Draws Link Between Prescribing Patterns, Industry-funded Meals

A free meal could be all that it takes to convince physicians to prescribe one company’s drugs over another, a study suggests.

According to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine, physicians who received industry-sponsored meals — most averaging less than $20 — demonstrated a higher likelihood of prescribing a promoted drug than those who did not receive a meal.

The study examined four different drug classes for which doctors write prescriptions: statins, cardioselective β-blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin-receptor blockers and selective serotonin/serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors.