Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18050

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Publication type: Journal Article

Burton B
Australian government tries to stop independent advice on diabetes drugs
BMJ 2003 Dec 13; 327:(7428):1368
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/327/7428/1368-g

Abstract:

The Australian Department of Health and Ageing has admitted that it lobbied an independent agency, which advises doctors and consumers on appropriate use of drugs, to exclude two diabetes drugs from its review programme.

In October the government announced that Eli Lilly’s Actos (pioglitazone hydrochloride) and GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia (rosiglitazone maleate) would be included on the schedule of drugs subsidised by the government to treat type 2 diabetes.

As part of the deal on the two drugs, the details of which are deemed “commercial in confidence,” the department allowed the pharmaceutical companies to regulate their own educational materieals, limiting the advisory role of the National Prescribing Service.

Shortly after its announcement, the department wrote to the prescribing service, requesting that the two drugs should not be a priority for their work programme over the next two years. The service is funded by government but is an independent non-profit . . .