Drug Industry Is Told to Stop Gifts to Doctors. (From the NY Times) Apparently, the voluntary PhRMA guidelines from earlier this year were not enough for the federal government. According to the article:
The inspector general said that compliance with the industry code was desirable, but "will not necessarily protect a manufacturer from prosecution or liability for illegal conduct."
Now, I've always wondered about those arrangements between PBMs and drug manufacturers that involved money changing hands for preferential treatment on formularies, but we need to be careful that we don't go too far here. Alot of perfectly fine programs, many of them truly educational and non-biased in nature, are supported by grants from Pharmaceutical manufacturers and I'd hate to see this move have a chilling effect on the creation of new programs.
And yes, I do have a financial interest in that last statement by virtue of what I do for a living, but working at Medscape has actually brought me close enough to the process to know that not every program funded by Pharma and directed at physicians is propaganda for a drug, and most importantly, I've never met a doc who couldn't tell the difference between a useful program and a biased one.
8:50:51 AM 
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