Blumenthal: Code On Gifts To Docs ‘Meaningless’

HARTFORD — Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, in formal testimony April 21, called again for a prohibition against drug company gifts and other benefits provided to doctors that may improperly influence health care decisions.

Pharmaceutical drug companies spend more than $11 billion annually to market prescription drugs — most of it directed at health care providers. Research has repeatedly found that such gifts influence health care provider decisions.

The pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, and physicians groups have adopted “codes of ethics” to prevent conflicts of interest — but Mr Blumenthal said these codes are virtually unenforceable and meaningless, and must be made law.

Mr Blumenthal’s office has ongoing lawsuits and investigations related to widespread conflicts of interest involving drug company gifts to health care providers.

“We must stop improper impacts and influence of money on health care providers from the pharmaceutical drug companies,” Mr Blumenthal said. “Shocking recent disclosures about Merck’s widespread ghost-writer reports — with payments to prestigious health care providers — vividly demonstrate the audacity of pharmaceutical drug company monetary influence.

“As multinational, sophisticated, profit-driven companies, drug companies spend billions of dollars on relentless direct marketing to health care providers, seeking to increase sales and profits,” he said.

Specifically, Mr Blumenthal proposes that Connecticut law:

*Prohibit any gifts, scholarships, or other items in exchange for prescribing products, a commitment to continue prescribing products or to otherwise interfere with the independence of a health care provider’s prescribing practices;

*Prohibit any gifts for the personal use of a health care provider;

*Prohibit any gifts to a health care provider for business use except for items of minimal value such as Post-Its, note pads, etc;

*Limit gifts for patient benefit to free samples of prescription drugs and items valued under $100;

*Prohibit any gifts or payments to health care providers for attending conferences but allow financial sponsorship of such conferences if the benefit of the sponsorship is distributed evenly among all attendees through reduced conference fees;

*Regulate payments to health care providers to serve as consultants, requiring written contracts, documentation of the criteria and the selection process for such consultants, articulation of the legitimate need for such consultant services; and

*Require all recipients of scholarships and other financial educational assistance to be selected by the participating academic or training institution and not the pharmaceutical company.