Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14571

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

Silverman E.
Secret Pharma Payments To Vermont Docs Disclosed
Pharmalot 2008 Nov 4
http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/11/secret-pharma-payments-to-vermont-docs-disclosed/

Full text:

Payments by drugmakers to Vermont docs between July 2002 and June 2004 totaled more than $4.9 million, much more than the $2.7 million that was previously reported by Public Citizen in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2007, the advocacy group now says.
The payment details were hidden by 21 drugmakers that designated the data as trade secrets, according to Public Citizen, which says it obtained the data through litigation and released an updated analysis, including the newly obtained data. The new material was published in a letter today in JAMA, and is a follow-up to Public Citizen’s testimony last year before the Senate Committee on Aging.
Three years ago, the advocacy group sued the Vermont attorney general and the drugmakers to unseal info about the payments. In a statement today, Public Citizen says these comprised 43 percent of all payments (9,182 of 21,409) and 56 percent of all dollars ($2.72 million of $4.90 million) paid to docs in the state. Among the drugmakers involved were Abbott Labs, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Lilly, Merck and Glaxo.
One of the key findings is that Vermont’s docs received $3.2 million in payments over $100 from drugmakers, 86 percent of all such payments to health care providers. Public Citizen maintains these “strongly suggest” frequent violations of professional guidelines issued by the American Medical Association and PhRMA, both of which prohibit many gifts from exceeding $100.
“Patients should be able to find out which drug and medical device companies are paying their doctors and how much,” Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, in the statement. “If doctors and drug companies don’t feel comfortable about making the relationships public, they ought to reconsider the relationship itself.”