Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7024

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: media release

UC Davis Health System Moves To Prohibit Receipt Of Gifts and Samples From Pharmaceutical Companies
UC Davis School of Medicine 2006 Nov 26

Abstract:

Joining a nascent national movement, UC Davis Health System has adopted new measures to reduce the influence of pharmaceutical market on physicians and other staff. The new measures ban health system employees from accepting free drug samples, food, beverages, pens, notepads and other marketing items, and disallow sales representatives from serving in preceptorships at the health system.
“These measures are a reflection of our desire to reduce any real or perceived conflict of interest involving our relationships with the pharmaceutical industry,” said  Timothy Albertson, medical director of clinical care at UC Davis Health System.
The new policies, approved recently by the health system’s Medical Staff Executive Committee, become effective July 1, 2007. In adopting the policies, the health system joins a small group of other academic medical centers that have done the same: Stanford University, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania.
The health system’s prohibition against receiving drug samples and gifts is in keeping with a “policy proposal” published in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In its proposal, JAMA stated that while pharmaceutical companies have benefited patients by discovering, developing and distributing new medications, “their ultimate fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders.” The article notes that hearings and legal proceedings have demonstrated “how company practices frequently cross the line between patient welfare and profit-seeking behavior.”
Although the pharmaceutical industry has taken steps to regulate itself more stringently, JAMA stated that “physicians’ behavior is a large part of the problem,” and urged academic medical centers to prevent further compromises to professional integrity by prohibiting “many common practices that constitute conflicts of interest with drug and medical device companies.”
UC Davis Health System’s ban on preceptorships for sales representatives goes beyond JAMA’s recommended guidelines. Preceptorships allow sales representatives, for a fee, to accompany doctors during their patient visits, providing the opportunity for the representatives to deepen their relationships with doctors.
The health system has established a Vendor Relationships Subcommittee to review and recommend policy changes for all potential conflicts of interest in relationships with vendors, including equipment manufacturers, implant and device suppliers, medical supply providers, pharmaceutical suppliers, and others. The subcommittee is coordinating its efforts with those of a similar ad hoc committee from the University of California Office of the President.