Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13344
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.
Hospitality report released
6minutes (Australia) 2008 Mar 28
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=166307
Notes:
Link to report summary on Medicines Australia site: http://www.medicinesaustralia.com.au/pages/page136.asp
Link to individual event reports:
http://www.medicinesaustralia.com.au/pages/page155.asp
Full text:
The long awaited report on pharmaceutical industry event sponsorship released today has been described by one critic as showing doctors routinely receive lavish meals.
Published on the website of industry lobby group Medicines Australia, the report, shows that $31 million was spent on educational events for doctors and healthcare staff in the last six months of 2007, including $16 million on travel, accommodation and catering.
With over 385 000 attendances the average cost of hospitality per head was $43.
But industry promotion critic Ray Moynihan, a visiting editor with the BMJ said patients would be shocked to see how much their doctor were being wined and dined by commercial sponsors.
“This is a fantastic guide to Australia’s best restaurants. It shows doctors are routinely getting $110 a head meals. If you seriously argue that lavish meals at fine restaurants is education then let’s see the names of doctors who take part and support that,” he told 6minutes.
The review, required by the ACCC, covered 14,633 events sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry.
While not giving names, it lists every event, venue and meal, a typical example being a one hour presentation for 30 GPs and respiratory physicians at Chopsticks restaurant, Blacktown, NSW, which cost $2000.
An independent review found of the events identified 52 potential breaches of the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct.
AMA president Dr Rosanna Capolingua said the AMA supported industry-sponsored educational activities and the industry’s code was the best way “to rule out any inappropriate marketing and promotion by the pharmaceutical companies of their products.”
“It is a great advantage for doctors who attend these education seminars to be able to interrogate the manufacturers of the medicine, discuss and look at the data, and gain knowledge before prescribing it for their patients,” she said.
