Foreign “Corrupt” Practices
At least a dozen major drug and device makers are under investigation by federal prosecutors and securities regulators in a broadening bribery inquiry into whether the companies made illegal payments to doctors and health officials in foreign countries.
In previous investigations, federal officials have charged that some companies made these kinds of payments to encourage doctors abroad to order or prescribe their products. In the United States, companies routinely hire doctors as consultants to market drugs and devices to their colleagues and other health professionals at medical conventions and small gatherings. Such consulting arrangements are legal in the United States as long as the companies do not pay doctors directly to write prescriptions for their products.
Why are these payments an issue for U.S. policy? If foreign governments believe the payments are harmful, let them prosecute.
And the payments may in fact be beneficial. By encouraging utilization of new medicines and devices, drug and device makers can expand the size of their markets, which implies lower prices due to economies of scale.
Plus, the ability to generate a larger market enhances the incentive to develop drugs and devices for rare diseases and conditions. Drug and device companies will ignore these if they cannot make a sufficient return on the necessary research and development.
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Cliff Nelson
It seems that what you are saying is that US law should only be enforced if the conduct harms US citizens.
Is that what you are saying?
I think the gov’t has an obligation to police US companies regardless of where their conduct is felt. Remember that we do not live in a vacuum, the butterfly … etc.
As for paying doctors to write prescriptions, since we know how vulnerable we are to compromise our judgment, it seems to me that heath care would be compromised if that practice was allowed.
Lpayments to encourage doctors abroad to order or prescribe their products.”
Jess Austin
It seems that what you are saying is that US law should only be enforced if the conduct harms US citizens.
I think this is a valid critique, and one we have to address because of the weight that people attach to physicians’ decisions. I think we should be able to consider behavior corrupt and evil without necessarily outlawing it. Publicizing the great extent to which an individual doctor’s decisions are prompted by kickbacks from drug companies can affect the behavior of all doctors. The documented corruption could be direct monetary payments, or fictively “legal” annual Hawaiian conference attendance. The technical means to discover and publicize this information anonymously (or in some other SLAPP-resistant fashion) is more available all the time. Crossing borders to govern physician behavior everywhere is just one of the many potential benefits of a state-free solution such as this.
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Cliff Nelson
To the extent that private remedies can be created to deter conduct or similarly to the extent that we can create a self-regulatory scheme we benefit. However, that avoids the issue of whether we should police actions that only hurt foreigners. I am not sure of Professor Miron’s opinion as to this.
ElGreco
Equal opportunity to marriage is a lot like equal opportunity to subsidies. Because, say, farmers are given subsidies, an increasing number of professions demand to be given the same, citing (rightfully so) equality.
Similarly married people enjoy certain state instituted advantages compared to single people, the most notable that comes to mind being, lower taxes, that is, tax subsidies. So, given a fixed government size, single people are penalized with more taxes so that married people can be given a tax subsidy. Understandably non-heterosexual people want to be given the same subsidies and if equality were the only issue, they ought to be given the subsidy too.
But wouldn’t perhaps be better if all subsidies were eliminated? So that nobody is forced to subsidize somebody else?
If I were single (homo or hetero-sexual) I might be particularly unhappy that yet another group has been added to the list of folks that single people must subsidize based solely on marital status.
Certainly, if you would like the state to get out of the business of picking your wallet based on marital status, then, including gays in the group of people whose relationship is now also regulated by the state, might be a step in the wrong direction.
Personally, I’m not sure what I consider more important. That gays be included in the marital status subsidy, or that single people are not discriminated any more than they already are?
Please understand that this is by no means a moral judgment on homosexuality, any more than criticizing farm subsidies is a moral judgment of the farming profession itself.
P.S. Interestingly, I am married so I’m given a subsidy so long as we are not a dual income family. If we do become a dual income family, the second income gets taxed at around 50% (Federal + State marginal tax here in California , loss of deductions, loss of student financial aid for children, etc.).
So, in summary, the state says: “We encourage you to get married but not to be a dual income couple”. I’m happy to see that I am not the only one who finds it ridiculous that the collective should place such marital status incentives and disincentives on individuals.
ElGreco
…Sorry, wrong post.
Jess Austin
test.. >
Marc
Are you truly suggesting that bribery is fine as long as it happens in other countries? That would tell a lot about you.
What do you think of sex tourism e.g. in Thailand? Is that fine as long as the Thai government is so corrupt that it does not prosecute the pimps who sell little girls to “tourists”?
Or should our government prosecute its own citizens according to its own laws here at home?
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