May 20th, 2006
Unease on Industry's Role in Hypertension Debate
By Stephanie Saul
The New York Times
Three pharmaceutical companies donated $700,000 to a medical society that used most of the money on a series of dinner lectures last year to brief doctors on the latest news about high blood pressure. The same three companies — Merck, Novartis and Sankyo — also gave the money that the medical society used to formulate the main talking point of those briefings, an expanded concept of high blood pressure that many doctors say would increase the number of people taking drugs.