'Why are doctors so corrupt?'

“Why are doctors so corrupt?”
The question came from a freelance health care journalist at a conference on medical reporting I just returned from.
He posed the question to a New York Times reporter during the first day of our four-day stay in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Bethesda, Md.
I asked the gentleman who posed the question the next morning to elaborate on his thoughts.
His point was this:
From Enron to AIG, Americans have seen first hand during the past few years a number of corrupt industries and businesses steering their followers in negative directions.
With the United States spending nearly one sixth of its gross domestic product on health care, a percent far greater than any other industrialized country, there is no end of a spending slow down in sight.
Doctors have close ties with pharmaceutical companies, he said, and negotiate payment rates with health insurers. Conflicts of interest are everywhere for doctors.
His question came during a talk on a story of a researcher who published findings of lung cancer death prevention in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was underwritten by a cigarette company, a fact the researcher tried to conceal.
Too often patients accept what their doctors tell them without question. Journalists do the same. I am avoiding answering the question, but it’s a question at least worth asking.