Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14733

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

Skerritt J.
Crackdown demanded on drug reps' 'freebies'
Winnipeg Free Press 2008 Nov 24
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/34977534.html

Full text:

Critics want health officials to crack down on the insidious relationship between drug reps and medical staff to stop nurses and doctors from accepting “freebies.”
On Thursday, Winnipeg Regional Health Authority officials revealed 17 people will be offered tests for hepatitis C, hepatitis A and HIV after a nurse at a local clinic reused a device to draw blood on multiple patients. A representative of Roche Canada gave the nurse the device as a free sample, and officials said there is no policy governing equipment given to health-care workers by outside industry reps.
The nurse wasn’t aware the device shouldn’t be used on multiple patients.
Alan Katz, a researcher with the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, said health officials need to control the influence drug-company reps have over nurses and doctors in publicly funded clinics. Katz said drug reps regularly visit doctors’ offices, hospitals and clinics to offer medical professionals free samples of their latest drug or medical device. Reps still invite doctors to free dinners at upscale restaurants like 529 Wellington, Katz said, and often pay physicians to speak at sponsored events.
He said reps are trained to “be your friend” and that most medical professionals don’t realize the cosy relationship affects what devices they use and what drugs they prescribe.
“Why should a publicly funded clinic need to get freebies from industry? That’s absurd,” Katz said. “There is no question we should not be relying on equipment and funding from the industry.”
Dave Rubel, WRHA director of internal audits, said he’s concerned reps are targeting doctors and medical staff to sell their products. Rubel said some U.S. hospitals have enacted a zero-tolerance “coffee-and-doughnut” policy that prohibits staff from accepting anything from drug-company reps.
He said the WRHA plans to review its conflict-of-interest policy in light of the concerns.
“We’re concerned,” Rubel said. “To what extent it’s happening out there, I don’t know.”
Michelle Beaubien, a spokeswoman with Roche Canada, said the recent incident involving the reuse of their single-use blood-sampling device will be reported to Health Canada and the company’s head office in Switzerland.
Giving out free samples to health- care professionals is a common industry practice, she said, adding that there are no health regions considering introducing restrictions on this.
“It is a common practice that we give away samples to be given out to the patients to test,” Beaubien said. “I mean, usually we give out those samples and explain (about them) to the health-care professionals.”
B.C.-based Dr. Warren Bell, an outspoken critic of drug-company freebies, said there should be more public debate about the issue and that health-care facilities and doctors need to stop relying on handouts from drug companies.
Bell, who hasn’t allowed a drug rep in his office for the last three decades, said the practice is very embedded and it’s only natural that medical professionals absorb drug advertising when they attend sponsored events or take free samples.
Bell called it a “rocky road to ruin” and said it causes doctors to parrot the public-relations blurb pounded into them by the drug rep.
“It’s so pervasive now that no one should be surprised there’s no guidelines,” he said.
“People think if someone wants to buy their way into the hearts and minds of health-care professionals, that it’s up to the health-care professionals to be (responsible) — but of course we’re not.”