Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18511

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: Electronic Source

Silverman E
Israel's Comptroller Probes Hospital Ties To Pharma
Pharma Times 2010 July 26
http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/07/israels-comptroller-probes-hospital-ties-to-pharma/

Full text:

Israel’s Comptroller has launched an investigation into the financial ties between drugmakers and various health-care organizations, including hospitals and their research foundations, as well as any related organizations, and expects to release his report in May, Ha’aretz reports.
The move comes as the Israel Medical Association voluntarily disclosed the amount of money received last year from drugmakers, which was done in hopes of thwarting legislation to require doctors to report payment from the the pharmaceutical industry. The IMA also agreed to support a bill that would require disclosure of payments to medical organizations and research physicians, the newspaper continues (see here). According to the IMA’s voluntary disclosure, the organization received about $184,000 in 2009, including $71,000 from drugmakers. Specialist groups have not made comparable disclosures.
The IMA’s ethics bureau approved the voluntary disclosure in an effort to show that legislation was not needed. Bureau chairman Avinoam Reches was quoted as saying the IMA viewed the legislation as both discriminatory and ineffective and believed voluntary disclosure would be “much more reliable and transparent.” But the IMA has done an about-face and sent a letter to government ministers and Knesset members agreed to support the bill if it applied to other health-care organizations as well, such as HMOs and the Health Ministry, which also receive donations from drugmakers.
“We believe the public has the right to receive comprehensive information about this activity,” the IMA said in a statement given Ha’aretz. HMOs are already included in the bill and the Health Ministry, which backs the bill, immediately announced it would agree to be included in the transparency mandate. “That was our original intention, and we never thought otherwise,” the ministry said in a statement. “Anyone who did think otherwise didn’t understand the legislation’s intent.”
In March 2009, the Health Ministry’s comptroller published a scathing report on ties between docs and drugmakers based on inspections at three hospitals in 2005 and 2006. However, he added, no comprehensive info on donations various hospital departments received from drug or device makers was available. He concluded “all Israeli doctors should be required to provide full disclosure about their ties with pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies and to fill out a conflict-of-interests form.”