South Carolina Middle School Hit with Possible Norovirus

Pfizer says that it paid $20 million to 4,500 doctors and other medical professionals for consulting and speaking on its behalf in the last six months of 2009.

This is its first public accounting of payments to the people who decide which drugs to recommend.

Pfizer also paid $15.3 million to 250 academic medical centers and other research groups for clinical trials in the same period.

While other pharmaceutical companies have disclosed payments to doctors, Pfizer is the first to disclose payments for the clinical trials.