A one-time sales rep for Eli Lily told a Congressional committee that pharmaceutical companies hire former cheerleaders and ex-models to wine and dine doctors, overstate the drug’s benefits, and downplay their side-effects.

Shahram Ahari spent two years selling Prozac and Zypraxa for the drug giant. Ahari reported that in addition to cheerleaders and models, drug companies hire former athletes and members of the military in sales roles, many of whom have no background in science.

“On my first day of sales class, among 21 trainees and two instructors, I was the only one with any level of college-level science education,” Ahari said.

According to Ahari, sales reps have immense resources to woo healthcare providers.

“The nature of this business is gift-giving,” he said. He added that he’s heard stories about sales reps helping to pay the cost of a doctor’s swimming pool and another doctor who was routinely taken to a nightclub where a hostess was paid to keep him company.

Source: Marcus Baram, ABCNews.com, ?Ex-Drug Sales Rep Tells All.? (http://a.abcnews.com/Health/story?id=4438095&page=1)