Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1298

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Dixon K.
Doctors vote to curb pharmaceutical reps in office
Reuters Health 2003 Jun 18

Full text:

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. doctors, warning that pesky pharmaceutical salespeople are compromising patient care, on Tuesday voted to stem big drugmakers’ unfettered access to their offices.

Spurred by industry leader Pfizer Inc., thousands of sales reps in recent years have swarmed doctors’ offices with freebies from pens to drug samples to pitch their highly profitable, brand-name prescription drugs.

But in a resolution on Tuesday, members of the American Medical Association, the largest U.S. doctors group, voted to oppose the presence of drug reps without the explicit agreement of patients.

The resolution blasts the inappropriate presence of salespeople during surgeries and efforts by the drugmakers’ sales units to form “internships” with doctors.

Dr. Edward Lisberg, a River Forest, Illinois-based allergist, has banned the sales reps from his office if they refuse to sign an agreement on conflicts of interest.

Lisberg said pharmaceutical companies’ arguments that they are engaging in physician education are “ludicrous.”

“They are not trained in disease,” he said. “It’s all smoke and mirrors.”

NOT WELCOME

The allergist posted a sign outside his door banning drug companies that refuse to promise to abide by a voluntary code of conduct set up by the industry that includes restricting gifts and disclosure of contractual relationships.

But many big pharmaceutical companies, including Merck & Co., Schering-Plough Corp. and Pfizer, have balked, citing legal concerns.

“Physicians are really ignorant of the sophistication of the pharmaceutical industry,” Lisberg said.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry trade group, passed an ethical marketing code last year, in response to criticism that it lavishes gifts on doctors to steer them toward their products.

The industry does not track which companies follow the code, said Jeff Trewhitt, a spokesman for the industry group. But he added the CEOs of its member companies, which include most major U.S. drugmakers, have “enthusiastically endorsed” the policy.

That industry code caps the dollar amount of food and other gifts drug companies can spend on doctors, and states that information discussed by reps with doctors must be of scientific merit.

Critics, though, say the guidelines are toothless because they are purely voluntary and companies do not enforce them.

Trewhitt said when developing the guidelines, the industry decided they would butt up against anti-trust laws if they tried to make them mandatory.