Relationship between payments and prescriptions

Propublica published an investigation into the relationship between payments from pharmaceutical companies and physician prescription behavior. Unsurprisingly, doctors who were paid more by pharmaceutical companies prescribed the companies' products more often. Notably, a professor of medicine at Harvard said "If there are physicians out there that deny that there is a relationship, they are starting to look more and more like climate deniers in the face of the growing evidence."

The piece specifically disclaims studying whether the payments actually changed physician behavior (in theory, some pharmaceutical companies might target high-volume prescribers of their products and build relationships with them, which might involve financial compensation).