We’ve blogged about the evils of drug companies bearing gifts to doctors a number of times (here, here, here) so when laws to ban such practices in Massachusetts and Vermont went into effect on Wednesday, we thought it was reason to celebrate (in spite of the wistful Streisand/Diamond-like ballads that will no doubt linger in the hearts of many gift-getting docs).
For example, some doctors, such as Harvard hematologist Thomas Stossel (who is no relation to our buddy John, so far as we know), have organized opposition to the new laws—but recent history has not exactly been supportive of such efforts.
As we’ve noted before, the U.S. Justice Department is investigating Forest Labs for persuading doctors to use its drugs by picking up the tab for expensive meals, vacations, and sporting events. The company as already set aside $170 million to cover the investigation. Medtronic paid the government $40 million for dangling “lavish trips” in front of doctors to entice them to use its spinal products. And Pfizer pled guilty and paid $430 million for enticing doctors into prescribing the drug Neurotonin by giving them “lavish weekends and trips to Florida, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and Hawaii.”
“It’s a winds-of-change bill,” said Ken Libertoff, executive director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health, of the Vermont bill. “It says the relationship between pharmaceutical manufacturers and the medical field will dramatically change.”
And that may be so, as legislatures in “Oregon, Texas, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois and Maryland” consider similar limits on drug company/doctor gift exchanges.
Comments