Drug companies say advertising to doctors informs them of new drugs, but doctors say they use drug representatives for other, more menial purposes.

The doctor’s offices of today are filled with Viagra pens, Lexapro notepads and Nasonex coffee mugs, but doctors say these advertisements don’t sway their prescribing decisions.

Drug representatives visit The Athletic and Industrial Medicine Center, 1985 No. 300 DeKalb Ave., about once a month to teach doctors about new products and give out free food, pens and other small gifts, said Cynthia Susedik, medical director of immediate care and doctors at the facility.

“It doesn’t make me want to use the product,” Susedik said. “I’ll use the product for the purpose of the product.”

The incentives drug companies offer are sometimes useful for other purposes, she said.

Drug representatives often give free drug samples along with the other gifts. Doctors give these to patients for trial purposes, or to patients who can’t afford the medication.

Other doctors benefit from the incentives more directly.

Scott LeGrand, resident doctor in the Internal Medicine Resident Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin, said representatives invite him, along with other doctors, once a week to dinner where doctors hired by the drug companies give lectures on medicines being promoted.

Whether these practices are ethical is up for debate.

“I don’t think drug-rep sponsored dinners are unethical, per se,” LeGrand said. “The drug reps are representing their companies who need sales to stay in business, and frankly, if they didn’t provide dinner, no one would come.”

He said it’s the independent choice of doctors to research the products.

The representatives are there for drug awareness, and in some cases, non-hospital food service, LeGrand said.

However, to some like Tom Carey, the pharmacy director at the Swedish American Hospital in Rockford, someone constantly offering free gifts and food can become irritating.

“The reps are sort of an annoyance,” he said.

He doesn’t use drug representative information because he said product knowledge is the pharmacist’s responsibility, which leaves little purpose for drug representatives.

To deal with the sometimes overwhelming advertising tactics of drug companies, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America came out with the “Code on Interactions with Health care Professionals” in July, 2002.

PhRMA represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies such as Merck, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ortho Biotech and Johnson & Johnson.

PhRMA Spokesman Jeff Trewhitt said the code teaches drug representatives to make presentations “based on science and fact,” and keep “important focus on medicine.”

This means representatives should not sway doctors’ decisions with elaborate gifts or entertainment.

Any gift should not exceed $100, and should be used to inform physicians of a product, not influence them to use the product, Trewhitt said.

He said the pens and note pads are used to remind doctors of the products, and free meals are given because the representatives usually give their presentations around meal times.

However, these practices are voluntary guidelines and only encouraged, not enforced.