Do doctor-payment sunshine laws work?

In two states that passed so-called sunshine laws requiring drugmakers to disclose payments, doctors' choices of which drugs to prescribe for their patients did not differ much from those of peers in states without such a law. However, since the disclosure of information was to state agencies, not the general public, the state laws were less likely to influence doctors' behavior, one expert not involved in the research noted. In a letter to the Archives of Internal Medicine, the research team said they decided to look at the experiences of Maine and West Virginia—states that each enacted sunshine laws in 2004.