4 ms·

The miniscule value of those items is exactly what makes them -not- bribes.

• ceejayoz 6y ago
  Legally, yes. Functionally, they still work. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/health/research/19beha.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/health/research/19beha.ht... > A study reports that students from a medical school where such gifts are allowed had a more favorable attitude toward a cholesterol drug than did students from a school where they are banned. > Although hospitals have long discussed what restrictions to place on the more valuable offerings lavished by drug companies, the researchers, whose study appears in The Archives of Internal Medicine, suggest that no gift is too small.
  • retsibsi 6y ago
    I think there's a decent argument that 'bribe' still isn't the most applicable category. The gifts are certainly used as a manipulative tactic, but if their value is trivial and they are given unconditionally, maybe they have more in common with practices like hiring attractive representatives and instructing them to be friendly when pitching a product (and also with ordinary advertisements; part of the point of those free pens is simply to get a name or logo into the doctor's head). They're tactics to give the product a positive sheen and 'earn' some goodwill and familiarity, rather than items of (non-trivial) material value used to incentivise the desired behaviour. edit: I'm thinking of practices like the one referred to in the nyt article -- gift-giving to doctors by drug manufacturers. The top-level comment that started this chain did talk about items offered as part of a direct exchange, which is different.
• everdrive 6y ago
  Then why do the companies give them out?