Drug company marketing

Your story detailing the level of incentives paid by big drug companies to medical professionals exposes what appears to be attempt by these companies to buy favours (Drug giants accused over doctors' perks, August 23). This widespread activity seems to go beyond what is normally understood a "perk" given for some minor service rendered. We give these professionals our trust; they know best, we assume, and advise us on what medicines we need to take to maintain our health. How can this trust be maintained in the face of such practices? The companies themselves already make enormous profits from prices for drugs; they realise that spending a few thousands on sending doctors on foreign trips is worth it.

The government should, as a matter of urgency, introduce legislation to regulate the acceptance of such "perks".
John Green

If pharmaceutical companies think they are promoting medical education rather than engaging in "highly effective, well-targeted marketing", and the doctors would like a pot of money to fund their travel, what is stopping the establishment of a central fund in which drug companies pool their altruistic contributions and to which doctors can apply for sponsorship?

We hear that GPs claim back from the NHS a standard price for each drug prescribed, whatever they have actually paid for it, while the drug company deliberately bills them for a sum below this figure. What is being done to protect patients and how can doctors claim they are not influenced by drugs companies?
Joan Jenkins
Old Buckenham, Norfolk