Free drug sample study

From the Boston Globe article:

Fewer than one-third of all people who received samples in a 32,000-person, nationally representative survey had low incomes, and fewer than one-fifth who got the free drugs were uninsured at any point in 2003, the year analyzed by researchers at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School. Low income was defined as less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line.
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Free samples with a retail value of $16.4 billion were given out in 2004, the study says, up from $4.9 billion in 1996. Most were the newest, most expensive drugs, Cutrona said. Giving them away to patients is a way for pharmaceutical companies to introduce their new products to doctors and patients.

Click here to access. Study results will be published in the February issue of the American Journal of Public Health.