Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8708

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

Eccles K.
Gift guidelines ‘humiliating’
Medical Observer 2007 Feb 23
http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/displayarticle/index.asp?articleID=7464&templateID=105§ionID=1

Full text:

THE RACGP is warning GPs to “carefully consider” their relationship with pharmaceutical representatives and has issued gift guidelines for the first time.

The guidelines drawn up by the college follow revelations that pharmaceutical company Roche wined and dined specialists in some of Sydney’s finest restaurants, and advise GPs to keep patients at the forefront of their minds.

But Western Sydney GP Dr Hani Bittar said the guidelines were “humiliating”.

“We are highly professional people… this is all going too far. No doctor prescribes because of a pharmaceutical rep.

“If we think a product has [no] benefit for a patient, no gift in the world is going to influence us to prescribe it,” he said.

In the past six months, pharmaceutical companies have been fined $415,000 by industry umbrella group Medicines Australia for hosting extravagant dinners, irresponsible advertising and promoting products.

Roche was fined $75,000 last week for spending excessively to entertain specialists.

The recently released RACGP guidelines state that “the patient should be the primary beneficiary of any gift… and the gift should be related to the general practitioner’s work”. This included equipment such as stethoscopes, notepads and pens.

Associate Professor John Gullotta, chair of the AMA’s Therapeutics Committee, said the Medicines Australia code of conduct was “very clear, so I don’t know why we need more guidelines”.

An RACGP spokesman said the college had “confidence that the vast majority of GPs operate ethically, in the best interests of their patients, and would be unlikely to see a link between their own actions and those described in the Roche/Opera House story”.

However, an MJA article by Victorian gastroenterologist Dr Kerry Breen in 2004 clearly stated GPs who saw pharmaceutical reps were more likely to prescribe new drugs, the spokesman said (MJA 2004;180:409-10).

The guidelines also advise GPs to retain responsibility and control when organising sponsored education and training events, and only to participate in post-surveillance studies when relevant.

However, the college said it had no plans to stop sponsorship of its own Health Records by pharmaceutical companies, because it adhered to strict guidelines.

The guidelines appear on the RACGP website.