What's new

Some of the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies have dramatically reduced payments to health professionals for promotional speeches amid heightened public scrutiny of such spending, a ProPublica analysis shows.

Eli Lilly & 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 drugmaker in the U.S. 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.

The sharp declines coincide with increased attention from regulators, academic institutions and the public to pharmaceutical company marketing practices. A number of companies have settled federal whistleblower lawsuits in recent years that accused them of improperly marketing their drugs.

In addition, the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, a part of the 2010 health reform law, will soon require all pharmaceutical and medical device companies to publicly report payments to physicians. The first disclosures required under the act are expected in September and will cover the period of August to December 2013.

Within the industry, some companies are reevaluating the role of physician speakers in their marketing repertoire. GlaxoSmithKline announced in December that it would stop paying doctors to speak on behalf of its drugs. Its speaking tab plummeted from $24 million in 2011 to $9.3 million in 2012.

What's in a name? It's an age-old question Juliet once asked Romeo in Shakespeare's famed play.

Today, it's a serious question between the U.S. and the European Union, which has said it wants U.S. food makers to stop using European names.

But depending on what food you're talking about, a name could be a lot, says Kyle Cherek, the producer and host of a TV show called Wisconsin Foodie.

Cherek argues that certain products are so unique that only one country or region should be allowed to lay claim. So, for example, he says only onions from Vidalia, Ga., should be called American Vidalia, and Lambic beer absolutely has to come from a specific valley in Belgium.

"Roquefort, of course, has to come from that region" of France, he adds, because there's a distinctive fungus that gives the cheese its flavor.

But not everything fits into that category. Take, for instance, cheddar cheese — which is big business in Wisconsin.

Related NPR Stories

15-Year-Old Cheddar Best Enjoyed With Wine, Beer Dec. 7, 2009

Sunday night's Oscars will include a Best Picture race that's apparently narrowed to three films: 12 Years A Slave, Gravity, and maybe American Hustle. Matthew McConaughey for Best Actor? Maybe. Or Leonardo DiCaprio? What about Cate Blanchett, a seeming shoo-in despite Meryl Streep delivering, in August Osage County, the biggest, chewiest, most Oscar-friendly performance of all time?

Sure, some of these things are still mysteries. But that doesn't mean we don't know anything about the winners. We actually know a lot about the winners. Contrary to the myth of a wide-open field, by the time you get to Oscar night, the focus has narrowed, relative to the larger world of filmmaking, until it is the size of the head of a pin.

We know, for instance, that the Best Director winner will be a man. The Best Adapted and Best Original Screenplay winners will be either men or teams that include both women and men. Men will win the Oscars for Best Score, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Design, Visual Effects, and Cinematography. Most of those men, in all likelihood, will be white.

If the chosen Best Picture is a story about a woman (Gravity, Philomena), it will be the story of a woman as written by a group of men.

Women, on the other hand are locks only in the categories of Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.

We know from reading Oscar ballots explained by anonymous voters to The Hollywood Reporter that Lupita Nyong'o is getting at least one vote from an Oscar-winning screenwriter who hasn't bothered to learn her name, one from a member of the public relations branch who appreciates how she behaves herself at parties, and another from a member of the sound branch who also hasn't learned her name (or Chiwetel Ejiofor's) and who thinks Philomena was called Willamina.

We know from reading those same ballots that of the two (out of the five THR spoke to) who referred to the transgender woman Jordan Leto played in Dallas Buyers Club as a "transvestite," only one of them is voting for him. (It's the one who also referred to that same woman as a "take-charge guy," not the one who called her a "drag queen.")

If you were to play the percentages and not just the certainties, you'd know even more. And honestly, if 12 Years A Slave weren't around, you'd have several more categories entirely made up of white people.

The point of all of this is not "don't watch the Oscars." Not at all. The point is to watch the Oscars as frivolous piece of television full of people in beautiful clothes who gamble in the moment on what to say and who sometimes fall down or move you unexpectedly. Most of the people who will be honored are very, very good at what they do. It takes nothing away from them to point out that what we are looking at on Oscar night is not the world of film, but the world of well-funded, pre-sorted, mostly male-driven, mostly white-driven, mostly English-language, mostly American-made movies judged by people who don't always know the names of the people they're voting for and are trying to judge Jared Leto's performance (and the appropriateness of his casting, in all honesty) without knowing enough not to call his character a "transvestite."

The Oscars are fun, and sometimes funny, and diverting, and I (@nprmonkeysee) will be live-tweeting the heck out of them with Bob Mondello (@Bob_Mondello) and some other folks at #NPROscars, and I hope you will, too. But they're a lot easier to take if you keep in mind the folly at the core of them and take them as an artifact of where Hollywood is and where it sees itself.

After all, one of those anonymous voters said he was voting for Philomena "because it's the kind of film that I approve of." I could not have said it better myself. The Oscars: Given By Hollywood To The Kinds Of Films It Approves Of.

For real estate agents, March Madness has begun.

The rush is on to throw out clutter, paint walls and clean carpets. Historic data show the peak time for selling homes is April through July, and that means this is the month for spring cleaning.

"Freshen up the landscape and add that mulch now," Dallas Realtor Jeff Duffey recommended in a phone interview. "Get your over-sized furniture out of the small bedroom and put more lamps in that dark room."

The economy has a lot riding on how well people obey Duffey's marching orders.

Economists say a strong housing sector can drive job creation, as well as boost personal wealth and consumer confidence. Here are a few reasons for optimism, based on reports issued in last week:

Sales of new single-family homes unexpectedly shot up nearly 10 percent in January to a five-and-a-half year high, according to Commerce Department data.

The Pending Home Sales Index, compiled by the National Association of Realtors, showed that contract signings ticked slightly higher in January.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, which measures how confident people are about the economy, managed to inch up 0.4 points in February.

But while those are good signs, Realtors' chief economist Lawrence Yun is still being restrained in his assessment of this year's prospects. Because many builders got knocked out of business during the recession, new home construction has been subdued in recent years, creating inventory shortages and price jumps. Yun says that has been a problem, along with poor weather conditions in much of the country this winter.

"Ongoing disruptive weather patterns in much of the U.S. inhibited home shopping," Yun said in a statement. "Limited inventory also is playing a role, especially in the West, while credit remains tight and affordability isn't as favorable as it was a year ago."

This year, existing-home sales are projected to hit just over 5 million, which would be slightly below last year's level. Yun forecasts that the national median existing-home price will increase by between 5 percent and 6 percent this year.

But a major housing report just completed for the Conference Board — a business group — is less optimistic about home prices. It forecasts "existing single-family median home prices to grow at an average annual rate of 2.1 percent between 2015 and 2018."

The sooner the housing market returns to a healthy and stable state, the better for the economy, analysts say. For one thing, a strong real estate market can create jobs for home builders and remodelers. In January, the residential construction sector added 13,000 jobs.

Better home sales can also improve the prospects of all types of job seekers, according to John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., an employment consulting firm.

During the worst of the housing bust, "many job seekers were stuck in homes with market values well below what was owed on the mortgage," Challenger said. "In 2013, we saw a rebound in home buying and home prices. Fewer mortgages are 'under water,' which is making it easier to move."

PNC Financial Services' chief economist Stuart Hoffman wrote an assessment, ticking off reasons why the housing sector should hold up in 2014.

"The economy is adding jobs and incomes are growing, making households more confident," Hoffman wrote. "Big gains in stock prices over the past few years have boosted household wealth, and banks are gradually more willing to lend. There is also significant pent-up demand for new homes after potential buyers have put off purchases for years because of concern about the economy."

Realtor Duffey says he is feeling "super optimistic" because he already is seeing "buyers are fighting over homes" amid lean inventories.

Still, he warns that sellers should not become overly confident. Would-be buyers still have the option of renting if they don't like what they see.

"You need to spend $2,000 to $4,000 getting your house ready for the market, no matter what your price range is," he said.

When he meets with potential sellers, they often apologize for the state of their homes. He then delivers a lecture on the importance of spring cleaning. "They have Cheerios on the floor – and I know, that's how people live in real life, but that's not how you sell homes," he said.