Question:
what about the gifts given by pharmaceutical companies to doctors so they will write their products and these gifts may range from pens to fully covered trips and expensive gifts knowing that the cost of these free gifts are a burden on the price of the medicine
Answer:
It will not be appropriate and befitting the pharmaceutical companies to include the cost of the gifts that they give to the doctors in order for them to underwrite their products, in the price of the medicines. The patients are not liable to bear the costs of such gifts. If the doctors are aware of these companies doing so, then it will not be permissible for them to accept such gifts.
And Allah Ta’ala knows best,
Qasim bin Hashim Limbada
Attested to as correct by:
Mufti Muhammad Ashraf
Darul Iftaa
Jameah Mahmoodiyah
Springs
01 March 2004
09 Muharram 1424