Pfizer's payments to censured doctors

THEY are billed as "healthcare professionals who spend years building expertise in their fields". Using materials grounded in science, they educate their peers in the risks and benefits of drugs.

This is how Pfizer, the pharmaceuticals giant, describes the experts it hires to lead forums in which doctors are lectured on the use of its products.

Yet New Scientist has found that some of Pfizer's experts have been disciplined for deficiencies in patient care, while others have been reprimanded for how they conducted drug research trials.