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Payola and date rape drugs

According to Newsday.com, a psychiatrist in Maryland has been indicted for receiving money from a pharmaceutical company in return for illegally promoting Xyren, a narcolepsy drug, as not being a "date rape" drug (its active ingredient is GHB) and as being safe for small kids, which it isn't approved for. And he did this illegal promotion via physician meetings (the article doesn't say whether these were CME or non-CME meetings, though). From the article:


    The indictment charges that Gleason conspired with the company that made Xyrem, Orphan Medical Inc., in Minnetonka, Minn., to promote it for unapproved uses including chronic pain and weight loss. Orphan Medical allegedly relied on Gleason to give lectures promoting Xyrem to physicians and paid him tens of thousands of dollars to do so. Two lectures Gleason gave occurred at physicians' meetings in Great Neck, one last November and the other on March 6.

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