House panel drops ban on drug industry gifts to doctors
By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff
A hotly-debated ban on drug companies providing gifts and meals to physicians was stripped out of proposed legislation approved by a House committee late today.
The panel also removed requirements that drug and medical device companies report payments they make to doctors for consulting and speaking to other physicians, and that the Department of Public Health post that information on its website. A proposed $5,000 fine per violation was also dropped from the bill, which is expected to be voted on by the full House tomorrow.
Instead, the measure would simply require drug companies to adopt a marketing code of conduct, such as the one the pharmaceutical industry's trade association announced last week while negotiations on the Massachusetts bill were in progress. That voluntary code would ban restaurant meals and trinkets such as mugs and pens bearing the names of drug companies and products, but still allow companies to cater lunches in doctors offices and hospitals, which company salespeople use to promote their products directly to physicians.
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.
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A whisp of sanity from the House; It appears doctors do now not need another oversight body to investigate and fine them- the proposal that went to the house. What a bunch of crock anyway. Clearly the rabid anti-pharma moonbats will be jumping up and down- this is liberal Mass after all. All this to restrict interaction between doctors and Pharma while the daily medication TV ads direct to the public goes on unhindered. Perhaps it is felt that the public are better judges than doctors.
Notice the proposal to throw money at UMASS to create 'professional detailers' that would do the job of a 'pharma rep' is still there-why? because it is money for the state university- our tax money that could be better spent.
The House needs to move on from trinkets and free food to matters more substantial. The legislation would have seriously restricted the flow of information- and may have slowed down prescribing of new meds- guess that might have been a saving, by reducing education. If the 'gift ban' as origionally written were to pass it would have had such an impact on tax revenue (reduction) that all our elected officials would have some serious explaining to do!
The House does intend on banning the purchase of prescribing information- but at present all prescribers in Mass can opt out- meaning their prescribing is not accessable. 99% of people do not- they could not care less- but this is not good enough for the rabid libs who feel they know best for the doctors. So be it.
The Pharma code is strict and professional. Some say that Pharma cannot regulate itself, as if they cannot but other industries, the police, the government can. We all can to a great degree. Get over it!
"...because pharmaceutical and biotech leaders told lawmakers it could chill industry-funded educational conferences that bring doctors together with researchers."
I.e., could chill those industry-funded conferences we keep hearing about which "bring doctors together with researchers" so that a physician can be paid by researchers' companies to shill for a researcher's company's drug.
This is an outrageous cave-in to Big Money lobbyists. The House panel's members should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
I find it interesting the concern is of "cost effective" prescribing. Is anyone going to realize that without branded drugs which require billions of dollars in research in order to gain FDA approval there would never be generics. Generic drugs are derived from these sames drugs you are all wasting your breath critizing. The reason they are so much cheaper is because the branded drug spent all of the money doing the research to make sure it is a safe and effective drug. And evidence based medicine would in fact disqualify generic drugs from ever being used because there are no studies conducted to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the drug over time. The only requirement for the generic drug is that is have the same active components as the branded...look at your prescriptions, the active components are a minimal percentage of the drug...hope they guessed right on all the other stuff!!! Start getting to the heart of the issue...health insurance companies that charge pharmaceutical companies money in order to have preferred status or coverage on their plans don't want people out there encouraging doctors to use drugs THey (insurance companies) do not approve. They make drugs unaffordable and control the whole prescription world. Who regulates them? Is Therese Murray going after them next or because they are not former "beauty queens" they need not be bothered. The pharmaceutical industry has been regulated by the FDA and PhRma codes for years now and if your doctor is prescribing you a drug because someone gave him a pen, get his license number and report him because that is just outrageous, just like this waste of tax payers dollars. Perhaps all of these bill backers are working for the insurance companies who would like nothing more than for pharmaceutical companies to go away so there isn't anyone offering doctors a more safe and effective way to treat patients.
Keep in mind pharmaceuticals is a business so companies keep their drug prices competitive with other drugs like theirs, so the only difference in cost to the patient is in the form of a co-payment which puts it right back on insurance companies. They pay less toward the price of drugs they'd rather you not use and in turn you pay more. Hmmm, maybe there is something more here that could be looked at...nahhh let's keep going after the companies who are actually making drugs that save lives and cure illnesses they are ruthless!
No free samples of drugs to elderly patients? Some folks rely on this!!
Another bad example of Mass. being a nanny state. Glad the bill was changed.
excellent , no need for more goverment regulation
While I agree that there should be some kind of line drawn, I don’t think that any doctor would in good conscience prescribe a particular drug because some representatives from Merck brought buckets of chicken from Boston Market and pads of paper bearing the Merck logo.
I hope this applies to all states. As a past president in a nursing organization we were able to work with the mechanical companies to help with funding for educational offerings. According to the mechanical companies this was stripped away by the legislation mentioned. Our educational budget has been troubled and when this is coupled with decreased funding by medical facilities for education for staff the situation is dire. With all the technology out there the patients and consumers greatly benefit from assistance from these companies.
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