Prominent doctors are being paid by drug companies to act as "salespeople" to drive up prescription rates, a researcher and an industry insider say.

A report in the latest British Medical Journal is critical of so-called "key opinion leaders" paid by pharmaceutical companies to give lectures and advice, or be involved in medical trials.

Author Ray Moynihan of the University of Newcastle said the practice was widespread, with doctors getting up to $2600 to deliver a scientific speech to "educate" the profession and the public.

A former top drug company sales representative, Kimberly Elliott, told Mr Moynihan these doctors were essentially salespeople for the companies.

"Key opinion leaders were salespeople for us, and we would routinely measure the return on our investment, by tracking prescriptions before and after their presentations," she said in the journal.

"If that speaker didn't make the impact the company was looking for, then you wouldn't invite them back," said Ms Elliot, who worked for several global firms for two decades and left the industry late last year.

She said she would pay respected doctors $US2500 ($2600) for a single lecture, largely based on slides supplied by the company.

They could earn more than $US25,000 a year as adviser to the company.

Mr Moynihan, an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical industry, said the financial arrangement undoubtedly compromised the quality of the advice given to doctors and then, inevitably, to patients.

He called for industry sponsorship to be wound back to allow "more independent sources of funding to be secured".

Australian doctors are not limited by how much they can be paid for lectures and advice.

However, Brendan Shaw, acting chief executive of the industry body Medicines Australia, said the code of conduct governing its members ensured payment did not compromise the health professional's independence.


Comment: Wink, wink.

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"It is incumbent upon highly trained health professionals to communicate relevant and current information about medicines to their peers," Mr Shaw said.

John Gullotta of the Australian Medical Association said its members were permitted to be paid but the amounts accepted were "not exorbitant".