Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15946

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

Harvey slams Sigma cruise
Pharmacy Daily (Australia) - registration required 2009 Jul 9
http://www.pharmacydaily.com.au

Full text:

LA TROBE University Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Ken Harvey, has written to the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Mark Butler, about the Sigma Mediterranean Conference for GPs and Pharmacists (PD yesterday).

Harvey claims that the Medicines Australia code of conduct should apply to the event, even though
Sigma isn’t a member of MA, and says the event “is yet another example of inconsistencies and double standards of Australian coregulatory systems aimed at controlling unethical promotional
practices.

“Clearly, the purpose of Sigma organising and promoting a 10-day Mediterranean cruise…(with only
one and a half days educational content) is to promote the use and supply of their products,” he said.

Harvey is urging the creation of a single Code applicable to all therapeutic claims and promotional
practice, along with a single complaint and appeal process, a common monitoring process and “one set of effective sanctions.”

However a number of other PD readers have also responded to the story about the cruise, pointing out
that doctors and pharmacists will pay to attend, with one saying: “The advantage is that because Sigma has chartered the ship at a good price, anyone who attends can do so at a better price – a ‘winwin’ for everyone.”