House panel drops ban on drug industry gifts to doctors

The changes infuriated some consumer groups and long-time gift-ban advocates who said the legislation would allow pharmaceutical and biotech companies to continue influencing doctors to prescribe new and typically more expensive brand-name drugs, driving up health care costs. The pharmaceutical measure was just one provision of a larger bill, sponsored by Senate President Therese Murray, intended to rein in health care costs. The Senate unanimously passed a version of the bill with the gift ban.

"The lobbyists said jump and unfortunately, Beacon Hill says, 'How high,' " said Senator Mark Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat who first proposed a ban on drug and device company gifts to physicians in 2005. "If you are serious about taking on cost control, you have to take on the special interests and the sacred cows of the pharmaceutical industry."

The proposed legislation does, however, include a ban on pharmaceutical companies purchasing drug prescribing information that identifies doctors or patients, which companies use to hone their sales pitches.

"We are thrilled to see that included," said Lisa Kaplan Howe, a policy manager with Health Care for All, a consumer coalition. "Pharmaceutical companies use the data to give to their salespeople so they'll know what doctors are prescribing so they can tailor their messages, to know which doctors to spend more efforts on and which are a lost cause."

Patricia Walrath, House chair of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, said her committee's decision to include the ban on sale of prescription information shows its desire to balance concerns of consumers with the needs of industry. She said her committee stripped out the gift ban language because pharmaceutical and biotech leaders told lawmakers it could chill industry-funded educational conferences that bring doctors together with researchers. Instead, she said, lawmakers accepted the industry's recommendation that they adopt language used by the state of Nevada.

"We were very concerned that the Senate language would deny (doctors and researchers) the kind of information they need," she said. "One could interpret (the Senate's version) to mean they would not be able to get anything."

After Walrath's committee revised the bill, it was approved tonight by the House Ways and Means Committee.

The verison to be debated tomorrow does include a section, also approved by the Senate, that would create a doctor-led outreach and education program to provide objective information to physicians to encourage evidence-based and cost-effective prescribing practices. The program also would have to "inform prescribers about drug marketing that is intended to circumvent competition" from cheaper generic medications or other evidence-based treatment options.

The head of a trade association that represents Massachusetts medical device makers said he was pleased that the House committee deleted the gift ban but would lobby lawmakers tomorrow to fine-tune the wording to make sure the bill applies fully to his industry. Much of the language now refers to the pharmaceutical industry.

"This allows education and training to continue and requires companies to develop their own codes of ethics, which many have already done," said Tom Sommer, president of MassMEDIC.