Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4538

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

Cresswell A.
'Schmoozing' drug firms go too far
The Australian Newspaper 2006 May 2
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18996609-23289,00.html

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

“ The revised version seeks a slight relaxation of the hospitality rules, for example by dropping a previous ban on seafood platters, in response to complaints from doctors last year that they were being served party pies and limp sandwiches.”

By responding to less ‘wining and dining’ with more ‘whining and whinging’, the dummy-spitting prima donnas of the medical profession are unwittingly undermining the credibility of their colleagues, as well as themselves, in the eyes of the public.

Full text:

‘Schmoozing’ drug firms go too far
Adam Cresswell, Health editor
May 02, 2006
PHARMACEUTICAL firms face a renewed crackdown on the wining and dining of doctors who prescribe their drugs, amid evidence they are flouting industry guidelines on schmoozing.

Breaches of a voluntary code of conduct by drug manufacturers, designed to rid the industry of perceptions that doctors can be bribed to prescribe certain drugs, have included paying for meals at top restaurants and chartering “luxury” cruise boats for doctors.

The industry’s code says any hospitality provided to doctors should be “simple and modest”.

But the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has called for tighter monitoring of the rules amid concerns that they are being ignored.

The last six-monthly report of complaints under the code, overseen by the peak industry body Medicines Australia, shows one drug company, Baxter Healthcare, breached the rules by holding an “educational meeting” for doctors aboard a cruise boat on Auckland harbour.

Although Baxter insisted the hospitality provided was “modest”, the committee “expressed concern” in the report released in March that there was no formal agenda, and criticised the choice of venue as one that would “not stand up to public scrutiny”.

Another company, Biogen, was criticised for taking a group of consultant neurologists to one of Melbourne’s top restaurants, the Flower Drum, where allegedly “sumptuous” food was laid on.

Medicines Australia had asked the ACCC to authorise a proposed revision of the code for another five years. The revised version seeks a slight relaxation of the hospitality rules, for example by dropping a previous ban on seafood platters, in response to complaints from doctors last year that they were being served party pies and limp sandwiches.

But in its draft determination, the ACCC has proposed authorising the new version for only three years, and is insisting on a new condition requiring greater public disclosure on benefits doctors get.

“The ACCC considers that the new edition of the code contains some improvements, but remains concerned that it is not always effective in actually regulating drug companies’ conduct,” chairman Graeme Samuel said.

However, he added that while the ACCC noted the concerns of various critics that the code was inadequate, its role was “to consider the arrangements before it … not to craft an ‘ideal’ code”.

The ACCC’s proposed condition would require a monitoring committee to make drug companies reveal what education and promotion activities they had provided in certain months, and post details on the internet.

A spokesman for Medicines Australia said a response to the condition was being considered and overall the industry group was “very pleased” the ACCC had given interim authorisation.

But critics said the ACCC’s condition did not address the code’s shortcomings, which were more to do with drug companies’ determination to circumvent the ban on promoting drugs directly to the public.

Ken Harvey, adjunct senior research fellow in the School of Public Health at La Trobe University, said companies were doing this by various means, including directing patients to telephone helplines and websites, and placing advertisements in doctors’ software programs, where patients could see them.

A spokeswoman for the Therapeutic Goods Administration defended the voluntary code, saying it had “worked extremely well”.