Political Quotes

“I rise to introduce a bill today. Over the past several years, I have worked to establish greater transparency in the financial relationships and financial disclosure requirements between physicians and manufacturers of drugs, of biologics, and medical devices. In the last Congress, the 110th, Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and I introduced what is entitled the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which is intended to bring some much-needed transparency to these relationships between physicians and manufacturers. To explain why this bill is so important, let me point to a number of investigations I have conducted in the depth and scope of these relationships between physicians on the one hand, and manufacturers of drugs, biologics, and medical devices on the other hand. My findings to date are troubling and reveal significant undisclosed financial ties between physicians and industry. Some examples: These relationships, at times, resulted in annual incomes of over $1 million to individual physicians from just one company.”