Are gifts presented to doctors in exchange for prescribing specific types of medicine forbidden, and who bears the sin for them?

The payment of "gifts" by medical advertising companies to doctors in exchange for prescribing their medications is a prohibited bribe, due to the corruption it entails. This practice influences the doctor's prescription decisions, leading them to favor medications from companies that pay them, rather than what is best for the patient or most reasonably priced. The doctor thus transforms into a drug marketer.

The patient is harmed by this practice through the prescription of a less-than-optimal medication, and by the increased cost of the medication, as the patient bears the burden of these bribes.

Therefore, such an act is impermissible, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "Allah has cursed the one who gives a bribe, the one who takes it, and the intermediary between them."