Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9419
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
Nader C.
Drug company's treat for doctors
The Age (Melbourne) 2007 Apr 12
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/drug-companys-treat-for-doctors/2007/04/11/1175971180150.html
Notes:
Plus letters in response.
Full text:
ABOUT 100 doctors will be treated to fine dining at Silks Restaurant in Crown Towers next week, courtesy of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline.
The company is spending $91 a head on the dinner, which will follow a 90-minute seminar with an international asthma expert.
It is also flying in eight doctors from South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and rural Victoria to attend the seminar, and is paying for their accommodation.
Similar events are being held in Sydney and Brisbane, although the cost of the dinner in these states is $65 a head.
The events have again raised questions about whether such practice influences the prescribing habits of doctors.
The company says the point of the seminar is not to discuss any particular drug but the flight schedule sent to doctors bears the logo of Seretide, one of its asthma drugs.
Medicines Australia, the organisation that represents drug companies, is fighting Australian Competition and Consumer Commission efforts to force the industry to publish regularly information about drug company hospitality accepted by doctors. The matter went before the Australian Competition Tribunal last year and a decision is pending.
Ken Harvey, adjunct senior research fellow at La Trobe University’s school of public health, believed the dinner breached Medicines Australia’s code of conduct.
“If you’re flying people in and putting them up in an expensive hotel and giving them an expensive dinner, you are creating obligations … you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” Dr Harvey said.
“It does influence their behaviour and the companies wouldn’t pay large amounts of money if it didn’t.”
The Medicines Australia code of conduct says meals provided by drug companies at an educational meeting should not be extravagant. But a Medicines Australia spokeswoman said it had no reason to believe that next week’s event breached the code. “Should a complaint be lodged it will be considered and reviewed by the independent code committee,” she said.
GSK sent invitations to about 1000 doctors for the Melbourne event, and about 100 accepted. One GP who declined said: “The only reason they offer us free dinners and flights is to make us feel good about their company.”
Speaking at the session will be Eric Bateman, a professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Cape Town who is chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Global Initiative for Asthma. Professor Bateman is on an international advisory board for GSK and is paid for time away from his practice. He is being paid by GSK for his time in Australia.
A GSK spokeswoman said Professor Bateman was the foremost international expert on asthma.
She said the company was including dinner in the event because the session was being held in the evening to ensure that doctors who were seeing patients in the day could make it.
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Doctors and the drug companies
WE RURAL doctors are becoming a little sick and tired of the ongoing campaign by The Age against pharmaceutical-sponsored seminars for GPs.
The campaign seems to have gained its own momentum, but if this falters it is propelled along again by yet another article about doctors with “snouts in the trough” (“Drug company’s treat for doctors”, The Age, 12/4). The campaign has now attained the status of its own logo.
I have attended many pharmaceutical-sponsored events and have approved our Division of General Practice’s (Murray-Plains) policy of co-sponsoring many of them. They often include interactive lectures by clinicians of Australian and international renown who are at the forefront of research in a subject of practical interest to GPs.
Does The Age really expect that doctors would still attend these alleged “rorts” if they were not of good quality and had not been approved for professional development points by either the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine or the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners? Does The Age expect these events to be conducted at a fast-food restaurant such as Hungry Jacks?
Doctors are not fools and realise that pharmaceutical firms sponsor these events to promote their brand. Last year our Murray Plains Division co-sponsored with a pharmaceutical firm an interactive lecture by a senior clinician to teach GPs how to evaluate new products compared with old by cutting through propaganda and scrutinising clinical trials.
A recent article in Australian Medicine (19/3), published by the AMA, under the banner “Political pals and policy prescriptions”, has glossy photographs of AMA councillors and state presidents at the AMA parliamentary dinner, glass of chardonnay in hand, chatting with among others, health minister Tony Abbott, shadow minister Nicola Roxon, Department of Health and Ageing Secretary Jane Halton, and even ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel. I am sure that the discussions were not all about the quality of the chardonnay!
The cost of this, which I daresay The Age would call a “junket”, was paid for by the AMA as a legitimate means of influencing health policy through the lubrication of alcohol and dining. Was the dinner held at Hungry Jacks?
Dr Peter W. Graham, Vice-President, Rural Doctors Association of Victoria
———— Original Message ————
Subject: Re: Doctors and Drug Companies
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:36:36 +1000
From: Dr. Ken Harvey
Organization: Medreach Pty. Ltd.
To: letters@theage.com.au
Dr. Peter Graham (The Age 17/4) asked if “The Age” expected educational events funded by drug companies to be held at “Hungry Jacks?” What “The Age” (and I) were criticising was the choice of “Crown Casino” as a venue for a lecture, dinner and accommodation organised for GPs by GlaxoSmithKline Australia.
Section 10.2 of Medicines Australia Code of Conduct (15th Ed.) states, “The venue and location at which a company provides hospitality to healthcare professionals must be conducive to education and learning and must not be chosen for its leisure or recreational facilities. Meals provided by companies at an educational meeting should not be extravagant or exceed standards which would meet professional and community scrutiny”.
I’ve no problem with providing hard-working GPs with dinner at an evening educational event held in a suitable venue. I’ve been a guest lecturer to Divisions of General Practice at many well-attended events sponsored by Australia’s independent National Prescribing Service.
However, such events are held in the conference rooms of motels or relatively modest hotels, never the Crown Casino. In addition, when a meal is provided the cost would usually be in the range of $30-$40 not $90. A complaint about the hospitality provided by GlaxoSmithKline Australia has been submitted to Medicines Australia Code of Conduct Committee.
—
Dr. Ken Harvey
Adjunct Senior Research Fellow
School of Public Health, La Trobe University http://www.medreach.com.au
