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Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Drug Loopholes

posted by on May 2 at 9:06 AM

The pharmaceutical industry is pretty damn powerful in Olympia.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-36, Seattle) had a solid bill this past session that would have set up an on-line database for health care consumers showing what gifts pharmaceutical companies had given to what healthcare providers. The intent was to let patients know that their docs’ recommendations may not be objective and also to embarrass drug companies out of such crass behavior. The bill disappeared.

Well, how sweet of drug company GlaxoSmithKline. They sent Sen. Kohl-Welles an e-mail yesterday letting her know that a “compromise” could be worked out—and they alerted her to a bill they’re moving in Oregon. They claim it’s actually an outright ban on gifts.

Here’s part of their e-mail to Sen. Kohl-Welles:

I thought I would forward on to you a copy of the elements of the gift disclosure bill (actually a gift ban) in Oregon that we were successful in negotiating with House Health Committee Chairman Mitch Greenlick. GSK took the lead in rounding up support for the compromise with the PhRMA Task Force members. I think the final bill meets the needs of all parties. Thought you would be interested.

Are they on drugs? Here’s the language. Check out the “following exceptions” bulletpoints:

HB2648-3 Amendment

The Dash-3 Amendment to House Bill 2648 would prohibit pharmaceutical manufacturers from offering or providing to physicians or others authorized to prescribe drugs any gift valued at more than $100, with the following exceptions:

• Scholarships to attend educational conferences, as long as the recipients are chosen by the conference organizers;
• Gifts that have the primary purpose of providing an educational benefit to patients (Example: anatomical models);
• Items that directly convey information about health care products, educational benefits or supporting medical research (Example: reprints of studies from medical journals);
Meals with a value of not more than $100.

The $100 limit would be adjusted annually for inflation beginning in 2008.

Those exceptions—”convey information about health care products;” sending docs off to conferences; buying them dinners; gifts that provide and educational benefit—are exactly the way the companies work it now.

When drug companies lament about steep R&D costs, is this the type of thing (behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts to sweeten marketing guidelines) that they’re talking about?

RSS icon Comments

1

You won't know the half of it Josh, unless you worked in Big Pharma, like I did for 6 years.

Posted by Garrett | May 2, 2007 9:21 AM
2

To answer your question: Yes.

and all I did to learn this was deliver their food to them during these sales.

Posted by Tiz | May 2, 2007 9:44 AM
3

Well, the information about health care products is a fair exception, but everything else is bullshit.

Posted by keshmeshi | May 2, 2007 10:29 AM
4

If must give gifts, why not just give each doctors a few crates worth of their damn drugs, so they can pass them on to their financially strapped patients.

Posted by Sean | May 2, 2007 12:24 PM
5

Nevertheless, my dad used to get box seats to mariner's games from them on demand (literally, hmm you wanna go to this one? picks up the phone. so totally ridiculous shit like that would at least get stopped.

Anyway the Pharma industry is about as honest as the Tobacco industry; it's pretty silly to even discuss them as though their points like R&D were actually valid.

Posted by john | May 2, 2007 3:31 PM
6

It's pretty sad a post about something as important to every American's life as this gets 5 posts, while the obese lesbian post gets 20plus, mostly from hateful dicks. The internets be Hell.

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