Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15752

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

Barlow D.
New law curbs marketing of pharmaceuticals
Times Argus.com 2009 Jun 9
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20090609/NEWS02/906090356/1003/NEWS02

Full text:

Gov. James Douglas signed into law Monday what is believed to the strongest ban in the country on pharmaceutical company marketing to doctors and other medical professionals.

The new law, which takes effect July 1, restricts nearly all forms of financial contributions and gifts between the companies that make prescription drugs and the medical professionals in Vermont who prescribe them.

Supporters of this change, who lobbied hard for the bill’s passage during the 2009 Vermont Legislature’s session, say there is strong evidence these financial gifts – free lunches, trips to conferences and sometimes even cash payments – influence the prescribing patterns of doctors.

“This bill will be a major step in changing the climate and environment concerning the marketing of prescription drugs, medical devices and biological products,” said Ken Libertoff, the executive director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health, a Montpelier advocacy group that swore off pharmaceutical funding several years ago.

Douglas, a Republican, supported most of the provisions in the bill as it moved through the legislative process this year, but did worry that it could have a negative effect on some sectors of the state’s economy. Still, his signing of the bill Monday was not a big surprise.

Spokesperson Dennise Casey said Monday that Douglas supports the greater transparency that the new law will bring in revealing doctors’ relationships with the medical industry. But she added that the governor still has concerns that it could affect Vermont’s growing bioscience companies.

“The governor hopes that the AG’s office, when writing the rules for this law, keep in mind how it may affect some trade secrets in the business and the state’s bioscience industry,” she said Monday afternoon.

Before this law, Vermont had one of the strongest transparency laws in the country regarding the financial relationships between prescribers and drug-makers. The Vermont Attorney General’s Office, in its annual report, revealed that the drug companies spent $2.9 million last year marketing their new drugs to doctors.

That report has never told the full story of these financial relationships, however, as many of the details of the gifts and donations were protected under a trade secrets clause in Vermont’s original transparency bill.

That loophole is removed in the new bill and the attorney general’s office plans to construct a searchable, on-line database for patients to find out if their doctor has taken money from the drug companies.

Representatives of the pharmaceutical industry opposed the new law, arguing that their interactions with doctors and other prescribers are essential in explaining new treatments and medications with them.