I'm not entirely certain why I agreed to this, but I am scheduled to debate Tom Stossel on NECN's Newsnight with Jim Braude. It should air Monday night, June 2, at 8 pm. The topic is the bill being considered by the Massachusetts legislature that would, among other things, ban drug companies from giving any gifts to physicians. I've covered this issue in some depth here.
My opponent has an impressive pedigree, and is an eloquent spokesman for the view that there should be more, rather than less, interaction between physicians and drug companies. This site has links to many of his articles on the issue. I believe that John Stossel, the ABS news anchor who rants against various liberal causes, is Dr. Stossel's brother. If so, I hope he won't be receiving too much coaching from his famous debate-champ brother before Monday.
Tune in if you have a chance.
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5 comments:
Attaboy, Danny. Go get 'em.
Don't worry about debate credentials--you have the high ground here.
this is awesome, thank you.
Great job sir, you were able to get out a lot of excellent points and counterpoints in a very short period of time. I was only left thinking the debate needed to continue for at least one more segment; you guys were just approaching the issue of education and the "infomercials" that are often offered for continuing credit.
Now that we have Medicare D, the decsions made by physicians are having an enormous impact on the expenditure of public funds. Thus, it is more important than ever for our government to ensure that the judgment of physicians is not unduly influenced by commercial interests.
It would be interesting if someone could put a dollar figure on the drug purchases collectively by Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Dept of Defense, etc. This might help to convince the public that government should indeed be overseeing this relationship.
We would object if a DOD purchasing agent accepted gifts from a military contractor; so why wouldn't the same outrage apply here?
Note that the debate is available here:
http://www.necn.com/Boston/Health/Newsnight-Should-gifts-be-banned/1212452895.html
Further note that Dr Stossel did not disclose any of his personal financial ties to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies prior to or during the debate.
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