- 70% of Americans take at least 1 prescription drug, with more than half taking 2.
- In 2011, a record 4 billion prescriptions were written in the US.
- Total drug spending in 2019 was nearly $330 billion.
- Drug companies spend nearly $4 billion a year marketing directly to consumers and an estimated $24 billion a year marketing directly to doctors.
- Pharmaceutical sales reps, who often lack medical training, play a significant role in drug marketing efforts.
- Drug companies provide free lunches and other incentives to doctors to promote their products.
- Drug companies have been known to push doctors to prescribe drugs for non-FDA approved uses.
- Multiple major drug companies have paid billions of dollars to settle lawsuits related to irresponsible marketing practices.

- Many doctors who are called "thought leaders" in the medical field are actually just regurgitating scripts prepared by drug companies
- The pharmaceutical industry claims to be reforming and has put restrictions in place, such as only allowing modest meals to be provided to doctors
- However, a lawsuit against Novartis reveals that lavish spending and kickbacks were still being given to doctors
- Hiring doctors as paid spokesmen seems like a conflict of interest, as many top prescribers of drugs are also receiving money from the drug's company
- The Affordable Care Act now allows citizens to search a federal website to see perks given to physicians by pharmaceutical companies
- This website provides information on payments made to doctors, which can range from small amounts to millions of dollars
- Drug companies should be more transparent about the effects of their money on doctors' prescribing habits and regain public trust.

Pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars marketing drugs to doctors.
We have a few issues with that.

Connect with Last Week Tonight online...
Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens: www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

Find Last Week Tonight on Facebook like your mom would:
http://Facebook.com/LastWeekTonight

Follow us on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news:
http://Twitter.com/LastWeekTonight

Visit our official site for all that other stuff at once:
http://www.hbo.com/lastweektonight
Connect with Last Week Tonight online...
Subscribe to the Last Week Tonight YouTube channel for more almost news as it almost happens: www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight

Find Last Week Tonight on Facebook like your mom would:
http://Facebook.com/LastWeekTonight

Follow us on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news:
http://Twitter.com/LastWeekTonight

Visit our official site for all that other stuff at once:
http://www.hbo.com/lastweektonight

♪♪ Prescription drugs, the only ovals that can bring people in the Seattle area joy anymore.

To put it mildly, to put it mildly, America takes a lot of these things.

70% of Americans take at least 1 prescription drug.

Researchers say a record 4000000000 prescriptions were written in 2011.

Total drug spending jumped last year by 3% to nearly 330 billion dollars with a B.

That works out to $1,000 per person on prescription drugs.

Kind of makes you feel like Walter White could have made more money cooking up rheumatoid arthritis medication.

But should this really be that surprising?

Because it's impossible to escape pharmaceutical ads.

You can't turn on the TV without being subjected to an endless stream of sleep-inducing moths, old men getting boners while varnishing chairs, or this.

bladder is calling the shots, you may have a medical condition called overactive bladder, or OAB.

What that woman really needs is a pill to stop her hallucinating anthropomorphic bladders.

You're locked inside a prison of your own mind, Susan!

But that's only 1 small part of pharmaceutical marketing.

You see, drugs aren't like most other products, because you need someone's permission to buy them, which is why all drug ads end with the same catchy phrase.

Ask your doctor if Lunesta is right for you.

3 words you're either hearing in a commercial or saying to your co-worker when he asks you if the mole on his back looks cancerous.

Drug companies know that doctors hold all the real power in the prescription drug business, which is why, while they spend nearly $4 billion a year marketing directly to us, they spend an estimated $24 billion a year marketing directly to doctors.

In fact, 1 analysis claimed that in 2013, 9 out of the top 10 drug makers, spent more on marketing than they did on research.

Drug companies are a bit like high school boyfriends.

They're much more concerned with getting inside you than being effective once they're in there.

We thought we'd take a look at how all that marketing money gets spent, which turns out to be surprisingly difficult.

You usually only get tantalizing glimpses into during lawsuits years after the fact.

For instance, in 2012, the government settled a case with the makers of asthma medication, Adver, over allegedly irresponsible marketing practices, which meant for the first time, we were able to see this video of a 2001 adverse sales meeting.

That was for an asthma medication, and they were treating it like an NBA pregame show.

Please welcome, he's 59, white, he likes turkey sandwiches, and his wife's name is Karen.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Darryl Boom Boom Baker!

-♪ Boom boom baker ♪ -♪ Boom boom baker ♪ The audience in that room were pharmaceutical reps, the foot soldiers in every company's drug marketing efforts.

Now, drug companies will tell you their reps are there to educate doctors, but behind closed doors, that message can be a little different.

There are people in this room who are going to make an ungodly sum of money selling Adver.

That would barely be an appropriate tone if they were trying to get cereal into people's bodies, let alone drugs.

Now, you don't need to see the people whooping in that room to know what they look like, because pharmaceutical sales reps are famously young, attractive people.

In fact, this is so widely known, it's become a sitcom punchline for years.

Today's the day the pharmaceutical reps show up to peddle their new drugs.

♪ Doctor, doctor, give me the news I gotta...

♪ If something is a joke on scrubs, You know it's common knowledge.

That show did not do a lot of arcane, hey, what is it with phlebotomists and French cuisine?

The problem comes if those reps don't understand the effects of the drugs they're pushing, listen to 1 former rep describe his first training session.

I was in a room with 21 classmates and 2 trainers.

And I was the only 1 with a science background.

the first day of training, I taught my class and my instructors the very basic process by which 2 brain cells communicate.

So, essentially, pharma reps are like the cast of Grey's Anatomy.

They're young, they're hot, and they have virtually no medical training whatsoever.

Now, to be fair, Most doctors will probably take that into consideration.

I even had 1 physician, who would often bring out a patient chart.

If she was having a difficult patient, or whatever the case is, she'd bring out a patient chart and be like, okay, Kathleen, I've tried this, I've tried this, What do you recommend here in terms of tweaking?" And I'm sitting here thinking, I'm a political science major.

You're asking me, you know, what to prescribe for this patient.

Because the only question a poly-sci major is really qualified to answer is, was it weird having to move back in with your parents after college?

If you're thinking, why do doctors let drug reps into their offices at all?

They'll often show up with free samples, and even better, free chicken parm.

Whoever said there's no such thing as a free lunch hasn't worked in a doctor's office.

There are some offices that advertise in the front desk job description, free lunch every day.

Not because the doctors are paying for it, because the drug reps are bringing it in every day.

Now, that might not seem like a big deal, but think about it.

-♪ ♪ -♪ If Charlie Manson brought me a free lunch every day, I'd at least listen to his sales pitch on forehead swastikas.

I don't think it's for me, Charlie, but keep talking, that's delicious.

Drug companies don't do this to be friendly, they do it because they know it works.

In fact, they know a terrifying amount about nearly every prescription coming out of a doctor's office.

Every time a patient goes into a pharmacy to get a prescription filled...

The information is sold to drug companies who send it to laptops out in the field.

So we see everything that the doctor does, how many prescriptions he prescribes of our medication and the competitor's medication.

If the computer shows a doctor's not prescribing as promised...

All you have to do is say, hey, you're banging out a lot of prescriptions for the competitor's drug and not mine.

You seem to be making medical decisions based on your best judgment.

I brought you a meatball sub with chips, Carl.

Unsurprisingly, drug companies have, in the past, crossed the line, pushing doctors to prescribe pills for non-FDA approved uses.

And here is a horrifying example involving AstraZeneca, who the government charged with going off-label with Seroquel, an anti-psychotic with dangerous side effects.

The allegations, which were very troubling, were that they were taking a drug that was really approved for fairly narrow uses, bipolar disorders and schizophrenia, and marketing it for everything from sleeplessness to depression and dementia.

you can't just give people potentially dangerous drugs and see what happens.

You're a Fortune 500 company, not a white guy with dreadlocks at Burning Man.

Now, AstraZeneca denied any wrongdoing, but it paid half a billion dollars to settle the lawsuits.

And if you're thinking, well, look, that's just 1 company with 1 drug, you should know that just about every major drug company has paid money to settle similar charges.

Pfizer and its subsidiary paid 2.3 billion.

And GlaxoSmithKline paid out a record 3000000000 dollars to settle accusations that it had, among other things, pushed Welbutrin, an antidepressant, as a cure for weight gain and sexual dysfunction.

Or, as 1 former drug rep describes the pitch.

It was a quick zinger for your, doc to tell your doctor, hey, doc, remember Wellbutrin, it's the happy, horny, skinny drug.

That's not just irresponsible, that's copyright infringement.

Because there is only 1 happy, horny, skinny drug, and that is crystal meth.

And for the increasing number of doctors who will refuse even to see drug reps, the companies have 1 other trick up their sleeve.

Simply paying doctors to talk to other doctors about their products over dinner.

And that sounds ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the special ego-boosting title they use.

I essentially say to a doctor, hey, Our company has identified you to be a thought leader.

Would you like to be a thought leader for our company?

The doctor will normally almost every time say yes.

Doctors like to be called thought leaders the same way that Brendan Fraser likes being called two-time Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser.

It's clearly not true, but it's got a lovely ring to it, and look how happy it makes him.

Look at, give the guy a gong, look how happy he is.

In fact, the problem is, For a position described as thought leader, not a lot of thought goes into the job.

In many cases, the slides and the content and the script are actually prepared by the drug company.

It's not always clear to the audience that this is material that was really scripted completely by the drug company that was paying the doctor to give the talk.

Okay, so if you're a doctor just regurgitating a script, you're not really a thought leader so much as you are a thought-sayer.

You're more like the animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland.

Now, to be fair, again, GlaxoSmithKline will no longer pay for thought leaders, and the industry in general claims they're reforming.

In fact, a spokeswoman for Pharma, the drug industry's trade group, has even bragged about the tough new restrictions they've put in place.

In our pharma code, we say that pharmaceutical representatives could, can bring an occasional meal, a modest meal, turkey sandwiches, pizza.

I don't want to just focus on turkey, maybe we could have ham sandwiches.

Not in a restaurant, although we'd probably allow a steak at an Outback Steakhouse, because, come on, that's not a great steak.

That's basically a chunk of horse meat with grill marks drawn on it with a Sharpie.

So, no one's getting ethically compromised by that.

This voluntary pharma code is, I guess, a step in the right direction.

So, let's see how 1 of their members have been abiding by it.

The Justice Department filed a civil fraud lawsuit against the Swiss drug maker Novartis, accusing it of paying kickbacks and lavishly spending on doctors, including taking some out to Hooters in exchange for prescribing its drugs.

Don't worry, research has shown the best medical decisions are always made with an Aristona State College football game blasting in the background.

But at least Hooters qualifies as a modest meal.

They allegedly also pay doctors to speak at places like L2O in Chicago, a restaurant whose Zagat Review reads, and I quote, "'Tabs may bring tears to your eyes, so many say it's for special occasions only, unless, of course, you go on someone else's dime.

I'm guessing at the end of the meal, the waiter came over and asked, separate checks or is 1 person buying your influence?

The suit says many doctors took payments for speeches they never even gave.

All of which Novartis has denied, saying that everything they did had a legitimate business purpose, and besides, speaker programs like theirs are an accepted and customary practice in the industry.

Even in its best form, hiring doctors as paid spokesmen seems like a conflict of interest.

And multiple reports have found that many drugs' top prescribers are also often getting money from that drug's company, which is worrying, because we trust doctors.

When you see Rihanna trying to get you to drink coconut water, you know she's getting money to do that, and You take that into account.

You think to yourself, you know, I'm glad you're getting paid, Riri, but, I'm actually not going to drink that because you and I both know that coconut water tastes like cereal milk mixed with bull semen.

So, we both know that, so I'm gonna take that into account when I make this decision for myself.

I know this has all been disheartening, but luckily, there is actually some good news here.

A new clause in the Affordable Care Act will, for the first time ever, allow average citizens to search a federal website to see all of the perks given to physicians by pharmaceutical companies.

A federal website made up of a list of doctors?

Hold on, let me commandee up a new tab right now.

But look, This website is actually kind of fascinating.

The first batch of numbers are now online covering the last 5 months of 2013.

And you can, and absolutely should, go online and look up your doctor at this address and see what you find.

Maybe you'll find your doctor did a little research for a drug company, which is probably fine.

Or maybe, as ProPublica did, when they looked at pharma payments, you'll find a doctor who's earned more than a million dollars delivering promotional talks and consulting.

Or maybe, like we did, you'll find a doctor who got food and beverages 1 day worth 4 cents.

Because the only way a 4 cent meal makes sense is if that doctor is a mouse.

Wipe the cheese it does off your whiskers before you prescribe me anything.

The point is, there is information on this database you should know, and this should really be just the beginning.

If drug companies really want to regain our trust, Maybe they should let us know the effect that their money has on doctors in the only way they know how.

Have you noticed anything strange about your doctor?

Does he seem happier than usual these days?

Is he quick to prescribe drugs you think you might not need?

Does his waiting room frequently feature surprisingly attractive, not sick-looking people?

Well, that may be because your doctor's been taking pharmaceutical money.

Pharmaceutical money takes many forms, from free lunches to speaking fees.

Money combines with the cash receptors in your doctor's wallet to create fast-acting financial relief, so your doctor can rest easy and enjoy life.

Common side effects of doctors taking money may include chronic overprescription, unusually heavy cash flow, dependency on free samples, inflammation of confidence, affluenza, and an increased tendency to suggest off-label prescriptions, which in turn can cause heart attack, stroke, loss of feeling in arms and legs, seizures, blurred vision, grinding of the teeth, temporary deafness, total blindness, numbness, sudden bursts of rage, reduction of trust, angry erections lasting over 17 hours, and death.

Ask your doctor today if he's taking pharmaceutical company money.

Then ask your doctor what the money is for.

Ask your doctor if he's taken any money from the companies who make the drugs he just prescribed for you.

Then ask yourself if you're satisfied with that answer.

Ask your doctor if his Making it is right for you.


Speaker 0: ♪♪ Prescription drugs, the only ovals that can bring people in the Seattle area joy anymore. To put it mildly, to put it mildly, America takes a lot of these things.

Speaker 1: 70% of Americans take at least 1 prescription drug. More than half of us take 2. Researchers say a record 4000000000 prescriptions were written in 2011.

Speaker 0: Total drug spending jumped last year by 3% to nearly 330 billion dollars with a B. Wow. That works out to $1,000 per person on prescription drugs. Kind of makes you feel like Walter White could have made more money cooking up rheumatoid arthritis medication. But should this really be that surprising?

Because it's impossible to escape pharmaceutical ads. You can't turn on the TV without being subjected to an endless stream of sleep-inducing moths, old men getting boners while varnishing chairs, or this. If your

Speaker 2: bladder is calling the shots, you may have a medical condition called overactive bladder, or OAB. Again? But we just went.

Speaker 0: Okay, okay. Listen. What that woman really needs is a pill to stop her hallucinating anthropomorphic bladders. You're locked inside a prison of your own mind, Susan! Be gone, demon bladder, be gone!

-♪ Be gone, demon bladder, be gone! -♪ But... But that's only 1 small part of pharmaceutical marketing. You see, drugs aren't like most other products, because you need someone's permission to buy them, which is why all drug ads end with the same catchy phrase.

Speaker 3: Ask your doctor if Lunesta is right for you. Ask your doctor about Mere Patrick.

Speaker 1: Ask your doctor.

Speaker 3: Ask your doctor.

Speaker 4: Ask your doctor.

Speaker 0: Ask your doctor. 3 words you're either hearing in a commercial or saying to your co-worker when he asks you if the mole on his back looks cancerous. I don't know, Gene, ask your doctor. All I said was, how was your weekend? It's probably fine.

Drug companies know that doctors hold all the real power in the prescription drug business, which is why, while they spend nearly $4 billion a year marketing directly to us, they spend an estimated $24 billion a year marketing directly to doctors. In fact, 1 analysis claimed that in 2013, 9 out of the top 10 drug makers, spent more on marketing than they did on research. Drug companies are a bit like high school boyfriends. They're much more concerned with getting inside you than being effective once they're in there. So, we thought...

We thought... Okay. Don't think about that too much. We thought... We thought...

We thought we would take a look... We thought we'd take a look at how all that marketing money gets spent, which turns out to be surprisingly difficult. It's a pretty secretive world. You usually only get tantalizing glimpses into during lawsuits years after the fact. For instance, in 2012, the government settled a case with the makers of asthma medication, Adver, over allegedly irresponsible marketing practices, which meant for the first time, we were able to see this video of a 2001 adverse sales meeting.

Speaker 5: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome... Darrell Baker... Simon Joes... Rob Yonk... And Ken Tima.

-♪ ♪ -♪ Y'all ready for this?

Speaker 0: -♪ ♪ -♪ What the... What the... That was for an asthma medication, and they were treating it like an NBA pregame show. Please welcome, he's 59, white, he likes turkey sandwiches, and his wife's name is Karen. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Darryl Boom Boom Baker!

-♪ Boom boom baker ♪ -♪ Boom boom baker ♪ The audience in that room were pharmaceutical reps, the foot soldiers in every company's drug marketing efforts. Now, drug companies will tell you their reps are there to educate doctors, but behind closed doors, that message can be a little different.

Speaker 1: There are people in this room who are going to make an ungodly sum of money selling Adver. -$2,000. -$2,000. And you know who you are.

Speaker 0: Ungodly? That would barely be an appropriate tone if they were trying to get cereal into people's bodies, let alone drugs. Now, you don't need to see the people whooping in that room to know what they look like, because pharmaceutical sales reps are famously young, attractive people. In fact, this is so widely known, it's become a sitcom punchline for years.

Speaker 6: Today's the day the pharmaceutical reps show up to peddle their new drugs. And at Sacred Heart, that means 1 thing. Julie's here.

Speaker 0: ♪ Doctor, doctor, give me the news I gotta... Vacation loving you. ♪ If something is a joke on scrubs, You know it's common knowledge. That show did not do a lot of arcane, hey, what is it with phlebotomists and French cuisine? Am I right?

You are right, Turk. We're great friends. The problem comes... The problem comes if those reps don't understand the effects of the drugs they're pushing, listen to 1 former rep describe his first training session.

Speaker 7: I was in a room with 21 classmates and 2 trainers. And I was the only 1 with a science background. In fact, on

Speaker 6: the first day of training, I taught my class and my instructors the very basic process by which 2 brain cells communicate.

Speaker 0: So, essentially, pharma reps are like the cast of Grey's Anatomy. They're young, they're hot, and they have virtually no medical training whatsoever. Now, to be fair, Most doctors will probably take that into consideration. The problem comes when some don't.

Speaker 8: I even had 1 physician, who would often bring out a patient chart. If she was having a difficult patient, or whatever the case is, she'd bring out a patient chart and be like, okay, Kathleen, I've tried this, I've tried this, What do you recommend here in terms of tweaking?" And I'm sitting here thinking, I'm a political science major. You're asking me, you know, what to prescribe for this patient.

Speaker 0: Yeah, exactly. Because the only question a poly-sci major is really qualified to answer is, was it weird having to move back in with your parents after college? Now, if you're thinking... If you're thinking... If you're thinking at this point...

If you're thinking, why do doctors let drug reps into their offices at all? Well, they don't come empty-handed. They'll often show up with free samples, and even better, free chicken parm.

Speaker 1: Whoever said there's no such thing as a free lunch hasn't worked in a doctor's office.

Speaker 9: There are some offices that advertise in the front desk job description, free lunch every day. Not because the doctors are paying for it, because the drug reps are bringing it in every day.

Speaker 0: Free lunch every day. Now, that might not seem like a big deal, but think about it. Lunch is awesome. -♪ ♪ -♪ If Charlie Manson brought me a free lunch every day, I'd at least listen to his sales pitch on forehead swastikas. I don't think it's for me, Charlie, but keep talking, that's delicious.

Drug companies don't do this to be friendly, they do it because they know it works. In fact, they know a terrifying amount about nearly every prescription coming out of a doctor's office.

Speaker 10: Every time a patient goes into a pharmacy to get a prescription filled...

Speaker 0: The information is sold to drug companies who send it to laptops out in the field.

Speaker 10: So we see everything that the doctor does, how many prescriptions he prescribes of our medication and the competitor's medication.

Speaker 0: If the computer shows a doctor's not prescribing as promised...

Speaker 10: All you have to do is say, hey, you're banging out a lot of prescriptions for the competitor's drug and not mine. What's going on?

Speaker 0: Yeah, what's going on, Carl? You seem to be making medical decisions based on your best judgment. I brought you a meatball sub with chips, Carl. Don't... Me on this!

Don't... Me, Carl. -... With this... With this level of pressure.

-... Unsurprisingly, drug companies have, in the past, crossed the line, pushing doctors to prescribe pills for non-FDA approved uses. That's called going off-label. And here is a horrifying example involving AstraZeneca, who the government charged with going off-label with Seroquel, an anti-psychotic with dangerous side effects.

Speaker 11: The allegations, which were very troubling, were that they were taking a drug that was really approved for fairly narrow uses, bipolar disorders and schizophrenia, and marketing it for everything from sleeplessness to depression and dementia. Here's the thing,

Speaker 0: you can't just give people potentially dangerous drugs and see what happens. You're a Fortune 500 company, not a white guy with dreadlocks at Burning Man. Now, AstraZeneca denied any wrongdoing, but it paid half a billion dollars to settle the lawsuits. And if you're thinking, well, look, that's just 1 company with 1 drug, you should know that just about every major drug company has paid money to settle similar charges. Johnson & Johnson paid 2.2 billion.

Eli Lilly paid 1.4 billion. Pfizer and its subsidiary paid 2.3 billion. And GlaxoSmithKline paid out a record 3000000000 dollars to settle accusations that it had, among other things, pushed Welbutrin, an antidepressant, as a cure for weight gain and sexual dysfunction. Or, as 1 former drug rep describes the pitch.

Speaker 4: It was a quick zinger for your, doc to tell your doctor, hey, doc, remember Wellbutrin, it's the happy, horny, skinny drug.

Speaker 0: Okay. That's not just irresponsible, that's copyright infringement. Because there is only 1 happy, horny, skinny drug, and that is crystal meth. That's a fact. So that's a fact right there.

And for the increasing number of doctors who will refuse even to see drug reps, the companies have 1 other trick up their sleeve. Simply paying doctors to talk to other doctors about their products over dinner. And that sounds ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the special ego-boosting title they use.

Speaker 2: I essentially say to a doctor, hey, Our company has identified you to be a thought leader. Would you like to be a thought leader for our company? The doctor will normally almost every time say yes.

Speaker 0: Yeah, of course they say yes. That's an appealing phrase. Doctors like to be called thought leaders the same way that Brendan Fraser likes being called two-time Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser. It's clearly not true, but it's got a lovely ring to it, and look how happy it makes him. Look at, give the guy a gong, look how happy he is.

In fact, the problem is, For a position described as thought leader, not a lot of thought goes into the job.

Speaker 12: In many cases, the slides and the content and the script are actually prepared by the drug company. It's not always clear to the audience that this is material that was really scripted completely by the drug company that was paying the doctor to give the talk.

Speaker 0: Okay, so if you're a doctor just regurgitating a script, you're not really a thought leader so much as you are a thought-sayer. Abraham Lincoln was a thought leader. You're more like the animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland. Now, to be fair, again, GlaxoSmithKline will no longer pay for thought leaders, and the industry in general claims they're reforming. In fact, a spokeswoman for Pharma, the drug industry's trade group, has even bragged about the tough new restrictions they've put in place.

Speaker 13: In our pharma code, we say that pharmaceutical representatives could, can bring an occasional meal, a modest meal, turkey sandwiches, pizza. I don't want to just focus on turkey, maybe we could have ham sandwiches. But... Modest meals, not steak in a restaurant.

Speaker 0: Oh, 0, no, no, no. Not in a restaurant, although we'd probably allow a steak at an Outback Steakhouse, because, come on, that's not a great steak. That's basically a chunk of horse meat with grill marks drawn on it with a Sharpie. So, no one's getting ethically compromised by that. That's what we're saying.

This voluntary pharma code is, I guess, a step in the right direction. So, let's see how 1 of their members have been abiding by it.

Speaker 5: The Justice Department filed a civil fraud lawsuit against the Swiss drug maker Novartis, accusing it of paying kickbacks and lavishly spending on doctors, including taking some out to Hooters in exchange for prescribing its drugs.

Speaker 0: -... -... Don't worry, research has shown the best medical decisions are always made with an Aristona State College football game blasting in the background. But at least Hooters qualifies as a modest meal. They allegedly also pay doctors to speak at places like L2O in Chicago, a restaurant whose Zagat Review reads, and I quote, "'Tabs may bring tears to your eyes, so many say it's for special occasions only, unless, of course, you go on someone else's dime.

I'm guessing at the end of the meal, the waiter came over and asked, separate checks or is 1 person buying your influence? Just 1, is it? Oh, that's Very nice of him. There you go. And at least they were there for that 1.

The suit says many doctors took payments for speeches they never even gave. All of which Novartis has denied, saying that everything they did had a legitimate business purpose, and besides, speaker programs like theirs are an accepted and customary practice in the industry. Which is kind of the whole point. Even in its best form, hiring doctors as paid spokesmen seems like a conflict of interest. And multiple reports have found that many drugs' top prescribers are also often getting money from that drug's company, which is worrying, because we trust doctors.

When you see Rihanna trying to get you to drink coconut water, you know she's getting money to do that, and You take that into account. You think to yourself, you know, I'm glad you're getting paid, Riri, but, I'm actually not going to drink that because you and I both know that coconut water tastes like cereal milk mixed with bull semen. So, we both know that, so I'm gonna take that into account when I make this decision for myself. I know this has all been disheartening, but luckily, there is actually some good news here.

Speaker 14: A new clause in the Affordable Care Act will, for the first time ever, allow average citizens to search a federal website to see all of the perks given to physicians by pharmaceutical companies.

Speaker 0: Now, I know what you're thinking. What? A federal website made up of a list of doctors? Hold on, let me commandee up a new tab right now. But look, This website is actually kind of fascinating.

The first batch of numbers are now online covering the last 5 months of 2013. And you can, and absolutely should, go online and look up your doctor at this address and see what you find. Maybe you'll find your doctor did a little research for a drug company, which is probably fine. Or maybe, as ProPublica did, when they looked at pharma payments, you'll find a doctor who's earned more than a million dollars delivering promotional talks and consulting. Or maybe, like we did, you'll find a doctor who got food and beverages 1 day worth 4 cents.

4 cents. I have to know what that meal was. Because the only way a 4 cent meal makes sense is if that doctor is a mouse. That's the only way it makes sense. Wipe the cheese it does off your whiskers before you prescribe me anything.

The point is, there is information on this database you should know, and this should really be just the beginning. If drug companies really want to regain our trust, Maybe they should let us know the effect that their money has on doctors in the only way they know how.

Speaker 3: Have you noticed anything strange about your doctor? Does he seem happier than usual these days? Is he quick to prescribe drugs you think you might not need?

Speaker 1: You know what? 1 more, actually.

Speaker 3: Does his waiting room frequently feature surprisingly attractive, not sick-looking people? Well, that may be because your doctor's been taking pharmaceutical money. Pharmaceutical money takes many forms, from free lunches to speaking fees. Here's how it works. Money combines with the cash receptors in your doctor's wallet to create fast-acting financial relief, so your doctor can rest easy and enjoy life.

Common side effects of doctors taking money may include chronic overprescription, unusually heavy cash flow, dependency on free samples, inflammation of confidence, affluenza, and an increased tendency to suggest off-label prescriptions, which in turn can cause heart attack, stroke, loss of feeling in arms and legs, seizures, blurred vision, grinding of the teeth, temporary deafness, total blindness, numbness, sudden bursts of rage, reduction of trust, angry erections lasting over 17 hours, and death. Ask your doctor today if he's taking pharmaceutical company money. Then ask your doctor what the money is for. Ask your doctor if he's taken any money from the companies who make the drugs he just prescribed for you. Then ask yourself if you're satisfied with that answer.

Pharmaceutical money. Ask your doctor if his Making it is right for you.

See all LastWeekTonight transcripts on Youtube

Marketing to Doctors: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)