As full disclosure nears, doctors' pay for drug talks plummets

Some of the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies have slashed payments to health professionals for promotional speeches amid heightened public scrutiny of such spending, a new ProPublica analysis shows. Eli Lilly and Co.'s payments to speakers dropped by 55 percent, from $47.9 million in 2011 to $21.6 million in 2012. Pfizer's speaking payments fell 62 percent over the same period, from nearly $22 million to $8.3 million. And Novartis, the largest U.S. drug maker as measured by 2012 sales, spent 40 percent less on speakers that year than it did between October 2010 and September 2011, reducing payments from $24.8 million to $14.8 million.