Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6465

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Publication type: news

Madden J.
Drug firms challenge crackdown on gifts
The Australian Newswpaper 2006 Nov 28
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20832556-2702,00.html

Full text:

Drug firms challenge crackdown on gifts

James Madden
November 28, 2006

THE drug industry’s national body is challenging the competition
watchdog’s push to crack down on generous hospitality packages lavished
on healthcare professionals.

Under the tough new approach of the Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission, the gifts from drug companies to doctors would have to be
fully declared to patients and the public.

But Medicines Australia, which represents research-based pharmaceutical
companies, has objected to the “unduly onerous” conditions imposed by
the industry watchdog.

The matter arrived at the Federal Court in Sydney yesterday – four
months after The Australian revealed that Swiss drug giant Roche had
been accused of breaching the pharmaceutical industry’s code of conduct
by providing lavish meals to doctors at some of the country’s best
restaurants.

Medicines Australia has set the guidelines for the industry’s code of
conduct since 1960.

Each of the 14 editions in the code’s 46-year history has been
authorised by the ACCC, but now the watchdog has demanded a greater
level of disclosure from drug companies over the entertainment and
hospitality provided to doctors.

In one case, Roche is said to have spent more than $65,000 taking more
than 200 top cancer specialists and others to dinner at an exclusive
eatery in the Sydney Opera House.

The dinner, which was part of a Roche-sponsored meeting for doctors
specialising in blood disorders and cancers, cost more than $200 a head.
Industry guidelines state that company-sponsored meals should be “simple
and modest”.

At the time, Opposition spokesman for consumer affairs and health
regulation Laurie Ferguson said the meals funded by Roche were
“outrageous” and could be perceived as bribery and corruption.

The director of scientific and technical affairs at Medicines Australia,
Deborah Monk, told the court yesterday it was “an overriding tenet” of
the code of conduct that “hospitality be secondary to the educational
purposes” of any industry summit.

The hearing, before a three-member bench, is expected to finish on Friday.