“Pharmaceutical companies spend more than $15 billion each year promoting prescription drugs in the United States. One-third of that amount is spent on ‘detailing’ — an industry term for drug company representatives’ one-on-one promotion to doctors. A paper published April 24, 2007 in the Public Library of Science journal Medicine uncovers the tactics which pharmaceutical sales representatives, commonly called ‘drug reps,’ are trained to use in promoting drugs to prescribing physicians. ‘It [was] my job to figure out what a physician’s price is. For some it’s dinner at the finest restaurants, for others it’s enough convincing data to let them prescribe confidently and for others it’s my attention and friendship … but at the most basic level, everything is for sale and everything is an exchange,’ stated former Eli Lilly drug rep Shahram Ahari.” (07/30/07)