Quite a lot of emotional energy has been devoted this week on the relationships between pharmaceutical companies (namely J&J) and bloggers. Evidently J&J invited a handful of bloggers out to dinner in New York to get a better understanding of how we cover the industry.
Only a handful of bloggers were invited (I was not one of them). However, it has been interesting to watch how some of the bloggers who were excluded got upset by this, which is just petty and childish.
What strikes me most about this drama has been the discussion of whether it was ethical for bloggers to accept a dinner from a drug company (one blogger paid his own way, but the others accepted). In a way, it mirrors the discussion of whether it is ethical to buy a physician a lunch. Why is it morally reprehensible for a physician to accept the $8 sandwich while the journalist/blogger who criticizes that physician can accept a $65 dinner? This makes absolutely no sense.
It takes more than a meal to buy loyalty in this world.
