Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19253

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

Silverman E
Maryland Considers Banning Gifts To Doctors
Pharmalot 2011 Jan 27
http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/01/maryland-considers-banning-gifts-to-doctors/

Full text:

Once again, Maryland lawmakers are considering legislation that would ban drug and device makers from giving gifts to docs and other healthcare providers. The move comes after a sensational scandal in which a Baltimore cardiologist was allegedly influenced by Abbott Laboratories to perform numerous unnecessary stent procedures (see this and this about the parties at his house).
Such laws already exist in Vermont and Massachusetts (read here and here), where payments to docs must also be disclosed. However, the bills caused considerable controversy, pitting drugmakers, doctors and restauranteurs against consumer and patient advocacy groups. Most likely, such a battle will play out in Maryland, as well.
Maryland has considered this sort of legislation before, but without any results, as The Baltimore Sun notes. Interestingly, the latest effort was outlined yesterday by Josh Sharfstein, the former FDA deputy commish who is the new secretary of Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He spoke at a briefing before the House Health and Government Operations Committee.
In response to the Abbott scandal, though, there is talk of requiring cardiac catherization labs to be accredited and changing rules to enable oversight agencies to share info more easily, the paper writes. One lawmaker, Dan Morhaim, who is a physician, plans to introduce a bill to strengthen requirements for peer review within hospitals so doctors can monitor work performed by colleagues.
Whether a gift ban will become law is unclear. Morham tells the Sun he believes new federal requirements are sufficient, a reference to a provision in health care reform that mandates disclosure of public payments to docs by 2013. However, there is no provision for gift bans. In response, Sharfstein noted the Vermont and Massachusetts laws have “important exceptions that aim to preserve the important ties between companies and practitioners that are necessary for advances in medical science.”
The briefing was the second such seminar held before the House committee and is part of a statewide effort to improve physician oversight. A state commission, meanwhile, is investigating the extent to which docs are performing unnecessary procedures and the Sun writes that at least one unnamed hospital is being investigated.
The probe came in response to the scandal involving Mark Midei, the cardiologist who was accused of unnecessarily performing stent procedures involving hundreds of patients at St. Joseph Medical Center. According to the Sun, which first reported on this episode, Midei allegedly overestimated levels of arterial blockage to justify the procedures. Midei has denied any wrongdoing and has filed a lawsuit against the hospital, alleging that it ruined his reputation, the Sun adds.