Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13011
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
Woodhead M.
Pharma hospitality will remain anonymous
6minutes (Australia) 2008 Feb 28
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=147256
Full text:
Pharma companies say doctors have nothing to fear when the industry starts to disclose details of all its sponsored educational meetings next month.
From mid March the industry will publish six-monthly reports of all sponsored events and hospitality on the Medicines Australia website  but this will not include the names of any doctors involved, says chief executive Ian Chalmers.
In an open letter to the medical profession he says the disclosure reports will cover educational events, journal clubs and grand rounds, as specified by the ACCC.
³The disclosure of educational event information will not impinge on the privacy of participating medical practitioners. The names have not been provided to Medicines Australia and will not be published on our website.”
A spokesman for Medicines Australia said the reports are required by the ACCC to disclose details of the venue of any sponsored event, the nature of the event, the speciality of the doctors who attend and specific details of what kind of hospitality was provided (eg two course meal and a bottle of wine).
The reports must also give the total cost of the sponsored event was and how much of the total was spent on hospitality.
The new ACCC transparency requirements have been described as “overkill”, with AMA therapeutics committee chairman Dr John Gulotta saying that for doctors who are the sole practitioners in rural communities the level of detail in the reports will make it obvious exactly what hospitality have received.
Meanwhile, AMA president Dr Rosanna Capolingua has rejected claims in last week’s BMJ that pharma industry sponsorship is turning medical meetings into marketing events.
Doctors are smart enough and independent enough to avoid any potential bias that might creep into company-sponsored medical education, she says.
