A good investment for drug companies

A study in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at payments to 279,669 doctors who prescribed specific drugs in four categories: cholesterol lowering statins, two types of blood pressure drugs and antidepressants. These doctors received 63,524 payments, 95 percent of which were for meals sponsored by drug companies, worth about $12 to $18 each. 

Doctors who were treated to a single meal, where drug companies present information about their medications, were 18 percent more likely to prescribe, a brand-name cholesterol-lowering medicine. They were 70 percent more likely to prescribe Bystolic, a brand-name beta blocker for high blood pressure, and 52 percent more likely to prescribe Benicar, also for hypertension. And they were more than twice as likely to prescribe Pristiq instead of a generic antidepressant.