Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15875

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

Rep. Lipinski Introduces Bill To End Tax Break For Marketing And Advertising By Drug Companies
Pharma Live 2009 Jun 17
http://pharmalive.com/news/index.cfm?articleID=635627

Full text:

Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-03) introduced H.R. 2917 on Wednesday, a bill that would eliminate the tax provision that allows pharmaceutical companies to write off the approximately $12 billion they spend to advertise, market, and promote prescription drugs to doctors and the general public.

“There’s no reason the American people should subsidize big pharmaceutical companies’ marketing expenses when they already have plenty of incentives to spend that money,” Lipinski said. “As Congress looks for ways to repair our health care system, this is one simple reform that ought not to be overlooked.”

Drug companies’ efforts to woo physicians have been the subject of increasing scrutiny in recent years. Lipinski’s bill would do away with the tax deduction pharmaceutical companies currently enjoy for the cost of entertainment, gifts, and travel related to promoting their drugs to doctors.

A recent report by the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academies found that the acceptance of free meals and gifts and other relationships with industry “may influence physicians to prescribe a company’s medicines even when evidence indicates another drug would be more beneficial.”

“The pharmaceutical industry’s research and innovation have helped millions of people,” Lipinski said. “But drug companies that have developed effective treatments shouldn’t have to wine and dine doctors to get their products prescribed or spend billions on commercials to try to sway the public. And they certainly shouldn’t receive a gift from the taxpayers to help them do so.”