Massachusetts Governor Signs Law Making Drug Companies’ Gifts to Doctors Public

In the face of stiff opposition from the pharmaceutical industry, Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law a health care reform bill intended to contain the costs of health care in Massachusetts and improve transparency in the relationship between drug companies and health care professionals.

“This measure will set a marketing code of conduct to help ensure health care providers make choices about prescription drugs and medical devices for their patients based on therapeutic benefits and cost-effectiveness,” Gov. Patrick said in a press release.

“I applaud the many important initiatives that this legislation enacts to enhance the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care in the commonwealth.”

A key part of the new legislation, known as An Act to Promote Cost Containment, Transparency and Efficiency in the Delivery of Quality Health Care, requires all gifts or payments in excess of $50 given to doctors or physicians by health industry representatives to be reported to the Department of Public Health, where it will be posted on its Web site for public inspection.

Calling the legislation flawed, representatives of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries had united to rally against the legislation.

“I have a lot of respect for the governor, and I am proud that he did not bend to the pressure,” said Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny of New Bedford, a former chairman of the Health Care Committee who, five years ago, sponsored the original bill advocating an outright ban on all gifts. “I have never seen lobbying this intense. They have been swarming the Statehouse for weeks.”

The Advanced Medical Technology Association claimed that public disclosure of what they termed “consulting arrangements” would allow competitors to glean information on their collaborations and product development.

Industry spokesmen suggested that passage of the legislation would potentially force them out of Massachusetts. A full-page ad by opponents of the bill appeared in the Boston Globe urging the governor to reject it.

Patient advocates argued that disclosure of the relationships between drug companies and a patient’s health care provider would allow consumers to make more informed choices about the prescription drugs and treatments being offered to them.

Sen. Montigny, who decried the influence that marketing dollars exert on doctors and physicians, said that the legislation is a compromise and, as such, contains both good and bad news.

“The good news is that there are no more trips to the Super Bowl, no more seminars in warm climates or $100,000 payments to people for ghostwriting pieces they did no work on,” he said. “The governor also signed it without sending it back for any amendments. If he had amended it, since we are no longer in session, that would effectively have killed it.”

Although he described the legislation as “better than half a loaf,” the senator’s attempt to mandate licensing for health-care lobbyists was omitted from the compromise bill. “We license hairdressers,” he said. “We should be licensing these drug salesmen. With all of the drug subsidies, it is the taxpayer who ends up paying the most.”

SOURCE: SouthCoastToday.com