Members of council considering physician gift rules may have own conflicts

By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff

Some members of the state's Public Health Council may be barred from discussing or voting on sweeping new regulations restricting drug makers' interactions with physicians, because they may have their own conflicts of interest.

Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach said during the council's meeting today that his department's staff are interviewing each of the 15 council members to determine whether they have relationships with pharmaceutical or device manufacturers that should limit their participation in the board's deliberations on the proposed rules.

The regulations written by Public Health Department staff are intended to implement a law passed by the Legislature last summer, which bans companies from providing gifts to physicians, limits when companies can pay for doctors' meals, and requires companies to publicly disclose payments to doctors over $50 for certain types of consulting and speaking.

The regulations are intended to control costs by reining in unnecessary prescribing of expensive drugs and to make doctors' potential conflicts of interests transparent to the public.

"We are committed to having the most scrupulous standards," said Auerbach, referring to the council's handling of the vote.

Melissa Lopes, deputy general counsel, who described the proposed regulations to the council today, said that 94 percent of physicians nationally have received food, drug samples or other payments or reimbursements from the drug industry. There are several practicing physicians on the council.

Spokesman Tom Lyons said the department is working with the state Ethics Commission to determine what types of relationships with industry would require members to remove themselves from discussions or voting or both.

While a handful of other states regulate pharmaceutical company marketing to doctors, Lopes said Massachusetts' regulations will be the strictest, partly because it is the only state in which the rules also will apply to device makers.

"This breaks new ground not only in Massachusetts but across the country," she said.

Critics, however, say the regulations don't go far enough, because they don't require companies to disclose payments to doctors for clinical trials and other research-related activities.

The department will hold public hearings on January 9 in Boston and January 12 in Worcester before the council votes to adopt the regulations as written or make changes.

More information about the proposed rules can be found on the department's website.