Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10225

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Publication type: news

Cresswell A.
Medics concerned at loss of faith in drugs process
The Australian 2007 May 28
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21803522-23289,00.html

Full text:

HEALTH Minister Tony Abbott has been warned the Government is risking the independence of the body that decides which new drugs should be subsidised by the taxpayer.
AMA Victoria President Mark Yates, a geriatrician appointed by Mr Abbott to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, used a question-and-answer segment at the AMA national conference to express concern in a loss of “faith in the independence” of the PBAC if plans went ahead to make drug companies pay for its running costs.

The Government plans to recover $11 million in running costs from pharmaceutical companies, which make the applications to the PBAC for their drugs to be subsidised under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Mr Abbott defended the planned cost recovery as being not unique to health.

“This idea that the (pharmaceutical) companies will ‘own’ the PBAC I just don’t think is real-world — the PBAC, as any of you who know the members will be aware, is a very tough-minded and independent-spirited body.”

Dr Yates caused laughter when he started his question from the floor by telling Mr Abbott that he stood at the microphone “in some trepidation, I suppose, as your appointee on the PBAC”.

While he said he believed “some aspects of the process can be cost recovered”, he added: “I implore you to consider … the risks that we face if it’s determined that the industry is actually buying a service from the PBAC’.” Mr Abbott asked him if he could be “bought”, to which Dr Yates replied that “it’s not my process that’s being bought — it’s the process of the PBS and the PBAC’s process”.