The  Boston Globe,  October 19, 2010

Liz Kowalczyk

The Harvard brand, unrivaled in education, is also prized by the pharmaceutical industry as a powerful tool in promoting drugs. Its allure is evident in a new analysis of all publicly reported industry payments to physicians.

Doctors and researchers affiliated with Harvard Medical School collected 45 percent of the $6.3 million given to Massachusetts doctors in 2009 and 2010 by seven pharmaceutical companies that disclosed their payments for parts of those years. The money was mostly for talking to other physicians about the companies’ drugs and the diseases they treat, but also for consulting on research and marketing.

“Companies value the cachet that comes with the name of a prestigious institution,’’ said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, director of the Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. “Even though the institutions themselves are not in any way endorsing the presentations, the aura carries over.’’

The proportion of money going to Harvard doctors underscores why the medical school and its affiliated hospitals, concerned that certain speaking fees can compromise the independence of doctors, are clamping down on such payments.

It is not clear yet whether these restrictions are slowing payments to Harvard doctors, because the data reported publicly are incomplete. But one company, Eli Lilly, gave 50 percent of its payments in 2009 to Harvard doctors and just 33 percent during the first three months of this year.

Many hospitals and medical schools continue to permit doctors to participate in company speakers bureaus, and even at medical centers that largely ban the practice, the analysis — by ProPublica, a nonprofit, online investigative reporting organization, and the Globe — found spotty enforcement.

Consulting with industry to develop new treatments is considered part of an academic physician’s role. But participating in speakers bureaus, while legal, is controversial. Bureau speakers typically show groups of doctors company-created or approved slide presentations about specific drugs or diseases treated by a company’s products. Many of these talks, often held at fancy restaurants, have been moved out of state, doctors said, since last year, when Massachusetts banned doctors from eating the free dinners.

Pharmaceutical companies defend speakers bureaus as an important tool for educating doctors and say industry naturally relies on physicians from top academic medical centers because their peers look up to them.

While some doctors who gave speeches once or twice during 2009 and 2010 earned $2,000 to $3,000, more than two dozen Massachusetts psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and other specialists who gave frequent talks brought in $40,000 to $100,000 and, in a few cases, more. Dr. Lawrence DuBuske, an allergy specialist, earned the most: $219,775. The Globe reported earlier this year that he resigned from Brigham and Women’s Hospital largely because of its new speaking ban.

Partners HealthCare, which includes the Brigham and Massachusetts General and McLean hospitals, halted their doctors’ promotional speaking appearances in January because of concern that they could be perceived as company salespeople and were helping to drive up use of expensive drugs.

Dr. Brent Forester, a geriatric psychiatrist at McLean, was one of the Massachusetts physicians paid the most last year, when he made $73,100 for giving nearly 40 talks for Eli Lilly to colleagues about the antipsychotic Zyprexa and the antidepressant Cymbalta over dinners in restaurants and in doctors offices. He has resigned from speakers bureaus to comply with the new rules, but said he “never felt like a spokesperson for the company at all.’’

“It was an opportunity to educate primary-care doctors about the treatment of psychiatric conditions,’’ Forester said.

Christopher Clark, who oversees compliance for Partners, said his staff searched drug company websites and identified 31 of its physicians who had been hired for speakers bureaus. All but two agreed to resign from the bureaus.

Harvard Medical School itself is also prohibiting participation in speakers bureaus, effective early next year. Consulting payments will still be allowed, with certain restrictions, but will have to be disclosed to Harvard, which has been under pressure from Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa to better monitor its faculty’s relationships with industry.

“We must ensure the integrity and objectivity of all our activities,’’ said Gretchen Brodnicki, the medical school’s dean for faculty research and integrity, who added that the Harvard faculty is huge, about 24 percent of the state’s doctors.

The data on physician payments was compiled from the websites of Eli Lilly, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Cephalon, and the Johnson & Johnson companies by ProPublica and analyzed for Massachusetts by the Globe.

Companies reported paying about 470 Massachusetts doctors, about 200 of them Harvard faculty, a small percentage of the physicians statewide and of those affiliated with the university.

Most drug companies, however, have not publicly reported payments. The ones that have posted the information report different types of payments for different time periods, so it is not possible to draw definitive conclusions about how many doctors received payments and how much individual doctors earned.