Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15772

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: media release

NLARx .
Vermont Governor Signs Law With Sweeping Gift Ban; Affects Drug, Device, Biologics Manufacturers
NLARx 2009 Jun 9
http://www.reducedrugprices.org/read_nlarxnews.asp?news=3744

Abstract:

Legislation Bans Most Gifts From Drug, Device Manufacturers To Prescribers And Closes Trade Secret Loophole In Disclosure Law

Full text:

Yesterday, Vermont Governor Jim Douglas signed into law the Bill S.48, which sets a nationally significant standard for disclosure and transparency in the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and physicians.

The Executive Director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health, one of the lead advocacy organizations supporting the bill, characterizes Vermont’s new disclosure legislation as “the most expansive in the nation”. “This bill,” said Ken Libertoff “will be a major step in changing the climate and environment concerning the marketing of prescription drugs, medical devices and biological products”.

“This legislation is sweeping and comprehensive. Vermont now joins Minnesota and Massachusetts in tackling head-on the pervasive influence of payments and gifts on medical practititioners through a ban on many gifts,” said Sharon Treat, Executive Director of the National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices (NLARx). “Once again, NLARx members have taken the lead.” Many legislators involved with passage of the legislation are NLARx members.

Highlights of the S.48 legislation are:

S.48 eliminates a major existing loophole in Vermont’s original law of 2002-the trade secret exemption
Applies to the manufacturers of prescription drugs, medical devices, and biological products.
Bans payments for gifts including meals and travel
Provisions extend to hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacists and health plan administrators
Includes disclosure of payments from drug companies to health care education and advocacy groups
Requires the establishment of a public website by Vermont Attorney General’s office in order to provide information to all interested parties
Despite strong opposition and resistance from Big Pharma and the biologics and medical device industry, Vermont’s bill prohibits meals and gifts beginning July 1, 2009. The Vermont Legislature defined free meals as a marketing device and not a necessary requirement of the educational process between drug companies and doctors.

The Vermont’s Attorney General, Bill Sorrell, reported in the most recent review of expenditures that over the past three years, Vermont doctors have received an average of about $3,000,000 in gifts from drug companies.

Although Vermont already required disclosure of many gifts and payments to prescribers, the new law closes a trade secret loophole which resulted in most data being submitted in aggregate form, with the public in the dark about whether their own providers accepted gifts and payments.

The Vermont legislation is also more comprehensive than pending transparency legislation in Congress, sponsored by Senators Kohl and Grassley, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act.

Besides Vermont, Massachusetts and Minnesota, other states with transparency laws, none of which are as comprehensive as the new Vermont law, include the District of Columbia and Maine. Legislation similar to the Vermont law is pending in Oregon.