When I was in medical school and residency, it was a standard thing that lunches were all sponsored by pharma. These were usually nice catered meals brought in by some pharm rep. The price was at least listening to a sponsored (biased) speaker, or a five minute sales pitch. Sometimes an office's or deparment's prescribing numbers for a particular drug were actually tracked and discussed, as if we were in a sales meeting and we were or were not meeting the pharmaceutical reps quota for sales. Dinners were even more elaborate, commonly held at some swank restaurant, with a paid physician (shill) brought in to present "research" about that company's drugs.
My attendings were offered tickets to desirable sporting events, or paid travel to medical conferences that just happened to be in Tahiti. There was that wink and nudge: of course you would be using your own clinical judgment about the effectiveness of the drug being pushed. Of course the freebies had no effect on your judgement. Of course the published positive results reported at sponsored conferences and in sponsored journals constituted all the data and all the trials of that particular drug.
If you had qualms about big gifts or even meals, a pharma rep was always ready to give you a gift of the latest textbook (embossed with the name of a drug and/or pharma company) or maybe a sponsorship to the latest conference: after all, augmenting your education would only benefit your patients, right? What could possibly be wrong with that?
Physicians are increasingly and rightfully refusing to accept gifts of any kind from pharma. It was unethical then and remains unethical now. Many med schools and residencies have now rightfully banned pharma reps from any contact.
We need more and better regulation, not less.
Ask your doctor if he or she accepts gifts. If they do, or if you see product advertisements of any kind in the office (to include pens, notepads, pharma-labelled equipment, drug/product brochures), find yourself another doctor.