Gift Disclosure Legislation on the Move

Posted by ChrisPMcCoy on Saturday, November 10, 2007 at 4:54 pm

Last week, the National Physicians Alliance came together with AMSA, Consumers Union and Community Catalyst to talk about the Physician Gift Sunshine Act. Joining us was Shahram Ahari, who formerly worked as a drug rep and is now exposing their marketing tactics. We talked about the need for disclosure of the gifts and honorarium that drug companies provide to physicians.

The Senate version of the Sunshine Act has been introduced, and we are now looking to introduce a House companion bill. Our goal is to build broad support for it, including bipartisan sponsorship. Integrity of medicine is not a partisan issue.

Shahram’s testimony is the most jaw-dropping. The expense accounts, the data mining, the training on persuasiveness, the profiling of physician personalities — the lengths drug companies go to in order to alter prescribing habits is disturbing. It is stunning to hear that drug reps spent 45 minutes preparing for each encounter with a physician (which might last 3 minutes). Can you imagine if physicians had 45 minutes to review each patient’s chart before the encounter?

We are looking to have the House version dropped by the end of the month. Once it is ready, we’ll mobilize for a conference hearing to bring this issue to the light.

Comments (2)

Category: Uncategorized

2 Comments

[...] Schaefer and Picker are both members of the National Physicians Alliance, a great group of docs and ally of the Project.   Other NPA docs in print (and online) are Daniel Carlat,  Howard Brody, and NPA blogger Chris McCoy.  But the common thread here is not the newsprint, but their self-made roles as citizen MDs. [...]

Comment by Dan

Made Saturday, 1 of March , 2008 at 12:02 am

This act would be appropriate if approved, since the reasons for the high cost of meds has never been honestly explained to the public, and this would allow others to judge for themselves. Furthermore, this financial disclosure of big pharma should state clearly the reasons for the funds spent by them, if this is not included in this act already. It would give the pharma industry an opportunity to explain thier reasons for thier terminology for thier spending, with words such as ‘consultant’ or ‘educational activity’, and should offers proof that such events actually occured. It would consume a lot of resources, but would be ultimately beneficial for public health.
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The National Physicians Alliance blog serves to facilitate communication among physicians and the public. The views presented on this blog are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the organization.