Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15947
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
Drug firm offers GPs luxury trip
The Advertiser 2009 Jul 8
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25749296-5006301,00.html
Full text:
A DRUG company is offering doctors a Mediterranean cruise it says is “the perfect mix of education and relaxation” in a move that could breach their code of conduct.
Taxpayers may help subsidise the cruise as doctors are being told they can claim it on tax as a professional development program.
Sigma, a generic drug manufacturer, which is the third biggest selling pharmaceutical company in the country, wants to take general practitioners on a luxury cruise visiting Italy, Malta, Corsica and Monte Carlo in October.
Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett is billed as the keynote speaker at the on-board conference advertised in the Australian Doctor magazine.
The ad says the cruise will have a strong focus on “practical education with a well-balanced format”.
Although doctors will have to contribute $7495 towards the cost of the trip, which includes airfares, Medicines Australia says the cruise still will breach a drug company voluntary code of conduct that requires the educational content of company functions to outweigh hospitality.
A representative from Phil Hoffmann Travel said 10-day western Mediterranean cruises in October could start from $2250, including economy airfares, up to $25,900 with business-class flights.
Medicines Australia chief executive officer Ian Chalmers said a drug company voluntary code of conduct did not allow educational meetings at holiday resorts. A cruise ship would fall into that category.
Generic drug companies, such as Sigma who are not members of Medicines Australia do not have to abide by the code.
Mr Chalmers said he had asked the government to make abiding by the code of conduct a require-ment for drug companies who benefited from government subsidies but it had not done so.
