Healthy Skepticism Library item: 903
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
Blackwell T.
Drug firm's violations of ethics 'unprecedented': Industry code: Company paid for doctors' trips to conference on French Riviera
The National Post 2005 Mar 19
Full text:
The Canadian branch of AstraZeneca, the country’s second-largest drug
company, has been put on probation and fined by its own industry association
for an “unprecedented” number of violations of the group’s code of ethical
conduct.
The breaches are related to the marketing of drugs to doctors with perks
that in one case included an “educational” trip to a luxury hotel in
Jamaica.
The code of conduct does not address the possibility of a company breaking
the rules so often, meaning special action was needed for AstraZeneca, said
a letter from Canada’s Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D) to
drug firm CEOs.
No such measures have ever been taken against a member before, an Rx&D
spokesman said yesterday.
“It is my obligation to inform you of a serious situation regarding one of
our member companies, and of the industry as a whole, as a result of
repeated non-compliance with the code of conduct,” organization president
Russell Williams says in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the
National Post.
“AstraZeneca Canada Inc. has reached an unprecedented number of infractions
recorded in a second consecutive 12-month period.”
The company, whose products include the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor,
was put on probation from Jan. 17 until mid-June. It has been complying with
the rules lately but if it did violate the code again while on probation,
AstraZeneca could be expelled from the association, said Julie Latremouille,
Rx&D’s interim director of regulatory affairs.
The organization also ordered AstraZeneca to communicate the action to
health care professionals involved in the infractions and requested its CEO
to appear before the Rx&D board this month.
“We’re sending out a clear message,” Ms. Latremouille said. “There will be
no tolerance of non-compliance. This is serious.”
In one infraction, AstraZeneca invited Canadian doctors to attend an
educational seminar at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Jamaica and helped pay for
them to attend.
In another case, the company provided airfare and accommodation for
physicians to go to a conference on bipolar disorder in Cannes on the French
Riviera. The industry group requires that doctors request funding for such
trips themselves, but it concluded they had been provided form letters to
send to AstraZeneca with the request.
The firm has taken the reprimand to heart and is trying hard to avoid repeat
offences, said Sheila Frame, vice-president of marketing for the company.
All employees must now write an exam on the code of conduct, with a passing
mark of 90% needed to keep their jobs.
But she said the violations that got the firm in trouble are mostly
“technicalities.”
“The infractions themselves are not something we’re embarrassed about. There
is nothing unethical in the infractions,” said Ms. Frame. “But we are taking
it seriously to make sure our employees absolutely understand.”
Joel Lexchin of York University’s school of health policy and management
said he knows of no other action like it being taken by the industry
association. But he questioned whether the measures would have much impact
on a company that had sales of more than $1-billion last year and said they
should have been announced publicly, not leaked anonymously to the media.
“It does go further than Rx&D has gone before, but I don’t think it really
gets to the problem,” said Dr. Lexchin, who is also an emergency-room
physician. “Maybe this means something, maybe it doesn’t.”
Rx&D plans to come up with new rules that would formally deal with repeat
offenders, setting out a process for increased fines, probation, suspension
and expulsion.
