Amid a nationwide effort to crack down on freebies given to doctors by drug manufacturers, legislation that would do so in New York is facing stiff opposition from business groups and some members of the medical community.

In recent weeks, several groups — including the Business Council of New York State, the Partnership for New York City, and the state’s largest physician group, the Medical Society of the State of New York — have mounted a campaign against several pending bills in Albany, and in particular one that would prohibit drug manufacturers from giving doctors gifts worth more than $50 in the course of a year.

Supported by Governor Paterson, the legislation seeks to improve transparency and stop doctors from being influenced improperly. If passed, it would apply to meals offered to physicians, but would exclude drug samples. Certain exemptions could be made for legitimate clinical trials, gifts from family members who are sales reps, and travel to continuing medical education seminars, although those payments would require some level of disclosure by physicians or the companies.

Such information could unfairly tarnish a doctor’s reputation, the state medical society is arguing. Business groups said the legislation would also impede business and clinical trials because it would extend to researchers as well. Ultimately, the groups said, the regulations could deter biotechnology companies from doing business in the state, despite efforts in recent years to cultivate that sector.

“We’re wasting our money on the economic development side if we’re just creating barriers and sending a negative message to the industry on the other,” the president and chief executive officer of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, said. She said pharmaceutical companies are already regulated at the federal level. An added layer of regulation would make the state “a very unattractive place to do business,” she said.

In particular, research and development would be stifled under the legislation, according to representatives of the biotechnology sector, who are circulating a memorandum of opposition to the legislation. The legislation would block all payments to researchers until a study is completed as planned, the executive director of the New York Biotechnology Association, Nathan Tinker, said. “Most clinical trials fail somewhere along the line,” he said, arguing that if the legislation passes, high-level scientists would be deterred from conducting research in New York.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who introduced the bill last month, flatly denied the legislation would have a negative impact on business. “That’s bunk,” he said. “The law would apply to a drug company whether they locate their plant in Uzbekistan or in New York.”

The bill is being considered as several other states are tightening restrictions on gifts to doctors. In April, lawmakers in Massachusetts approved a bill that bans pharmaceutical company gifts of any value to physicians and their office staff. Minnesota has a ban on gifts worth more than $50, and in Vermont, gifts worth more than $25 must be disclosed. Senators Kohl, a Democrat of Wisconsin, and Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, have also backed legislation that would require drug manufacturers to disclose the amount of money they give to doctors.

Mr. Gottfried said the legislation in New York would result in smarter health care spending if doctors are not pushed to prescribe expensive, high-prfit drugs. “This is an industry that is made up of some of the biggest and most profitable corporations on earth, that spend more money on marketing than on research and they have a lot at stake,” he said. “On the other hand, every patient and everyone who pays for health care has a lot at stake.”

In recent weeks, the state’s largest physician advocacy group added its voice to the opposition. In a memorandum, the Medical Society of the State of New York took issue with one of the exceptions to the $50 limit on gifts to physicians — namely, a requirement that physicians who accept more than $50 in gifts disclose what they receive. The group said that if the disclosures became public information, it could hurt a physician’s reputation.

“We are seriously concerned that the state’s compilation of this information, and its public availability, will lead to patients drawing an inaccurate and unfair conclusion about a physician’s character based upon the appearance of a physician’s name on such a ‘list,'” the medical society’s chief legislative counsel, Gerard Conway, wrote in the memo.

Some practicing physicians disagreed.

“There is a reason for this,” a New York City cardiologist, Dr. Evan Levine, said. Most physicians prescribe the medications they feel would work best, but he said there are “outliers” who are influenced by drug manufacturers.

Dr. Levine said he does not accept free gifts or meals, and he refuses to let sales representatives bring free lunches into his office. However, he said he stops short of turning them away altogether. “I allow them in my office because I need free samples for my patients who can’t afford the medications,” he said.