Today's Globe: drug industry gift rules, skin cancer, AMA apology, secondhand smoke, epilepsy drugs

I have no use for the drug industry in my office, and I am sure the upcoming pharma bill will make Massachusetts lawmakers and watchdog groups very pleased with themselves, but I can honestly say that the pharmaceutical industry has not influenced my prescribing patterns with pens and food, or even books, gifts, or travel. Why? Because the real influence is at the level of the insurance company formulary, where physicians are pressured to use the insurance company's drug of choice, regardless of physician or patient preference. It doesn't matter, for example, that the XYZ rep (say, for a well known cholesterol drug) dropped of some pens or even treated my staff to lunch. Its now a third tier drug despite it's efficacy, and despite the fact that many patients are doing well with it; instead, I am directed to switch them all to a different agent because the "formulary changed." These formulary choices are, of course, the result of deep volume discounts by drug companies to insurers, and seek to influence, rather than reflect, current market forces. Hmmm-I wonder how many "pens and books" are passed back and forth during those deals? If you want to stop real influence peddling, I suggest you start at the closed door meetings between big pharma and the insurance industry, not the pen peddlers and the family docs.

As a Mississippi Black physician, Baptist Medical Missionary and national advocate for health care for the poor and disenfranchised, I was glad to learn of the American Medical Association (AMA) apology for racial discrimination against black physicians. However, I feel the apology falls short of what is needed to bring healing and racial reconciliation to nation's black physicians.

I consider the apology by the AMA for historic racial discrimination against African-American physicians a necessary first step toward the resolution of a greater problem.

The apology does not include recent discriminatory policies and practices that have been supported by AMA leadership. I hope that former AMA President and board member, Dr. J. Edward Hill, will apologize for what he has done to undermine the medical practices of black physicians practicing in the poorest counties in America.

Dr. J. Edward Hill, while President of the AMA, was a board member of the Medical Assurance Company of Mississippi (MACM), the primary company for providing medical malpractice insurance for Mississippi physicians at the time. MACM's all white physician Board of Directors refused to renew the medical malpractice insurance policies of several black physicians, forcing me to close my Christian Family Health Centers in some of the poorest counties in America, located for in the Mississippi Delta in 2004. I have never had a medical malpractice judgement or claim against his medical practice after over 15 years of service to the poorest of the poor.

I believe the AMA must also openly and honestly address the issue of restitution from past and present policies and practices of discrimination toward black physicians.

Let us not forget our black patients whose access to health care has been limited because of discrimination against black physicians. Black physicians have lost their practices and livelihood because of racism. The medical profession needs healing from the legacy of racial discriminatory policies supported by the AMA.
I stand ready to work with the AMA to accomplish that goal.

"DOC"
Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D.
Founder & Chairman
American Pain Institute (API)
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
Myers Foundation For Indigent Health Care & Community Development
www.AMAApology.com
www.Juneteenth.us
www.njclc.com
www.19thofJune.com
www.AmericanPainInstitute.org
www.MyersFoundation.net

If the leadership of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 Step Fellowships could be as honest as the AMA, it would heal many wounds in people of color communities.