Senators Want Online Posting of Gifts from
Drug, Medical Device Industries to Physicians
Bi-partisan bill by Aging Committee's Kohl and
Finance Committee's Grassley includes many recommendations of Medicare
Payment Advisory Commission
Jan. 26, 2009 – A bill introduced last week to
require the makers of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and biologics to
report all money they give doctors over $100 to Health & Human Services,
and for the agency to post these reports online, is an example of what
appears to be a trend being pushed by Democrats in Washington to post
more of the government’s activity on the Internet.
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Herb Kohl (D-WI)
introduced the legislation and say in a news release the payments must
be “posted online in a user friendly way for public consumption.” Kohl
is chairman of the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging and Grassley the
minority leader on the Finance Committee.
The Physician Payments Sunshine Act of 2009 would
establish penalties as high as $1 million for knowingly failing to
report the information. The proposal incorporates many of the new
recommendations of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an
independent congressional agency which advises Congress on issues
affecting the Medicare program.
The bill marks a continued effort by Grassley and
Kohl to achieve public disclosure of financial relationships between
physicians and the drug, device and biologic industry. The legislation
introduced last week is along the lines of S.2029, a bill they
introduced two years ago, which the 110th Congress never considered.
“Shedding light on industry payments to physicians
would be good for the system,” Grassley said.
“Transparency fosters accountability, and the
public has a right to know about financial relationships. Patients rely
on their doctors’ advice. Taxpayers spend billions every year on
prescription drugs and medical devices through Medicare and Medicaid.
“They also fund tens of billions of dollars of
medical research each year, and the doctors conducting that research
have a big influence on the practice of medicine.”
Kohl said, “Since we first introduced the bill,
there has been a groundswell of support from every corner. Patients
want to know that they can fully trust the relationship they have with
their doctor. I am confident this legislation will pass during the
111th Congress.”
Kohl has convened several hearings as of the
Special Committee on Aging to look at conflicts of interest created by
industry payments to physicians. Most recently, he pursued an ongoing
investigation of industry funding of continuing medical education
organizations, beginning with a letter to the American College of
Cardiology concerning its five-year partnership with the Cardiovascular
Research Foundation, which receives funding from a variety of medical
device manufacturers.
In addition, Kohl is the author of legislation to
create a federal “academic detailing” program would provide physicians
and other prescribers with an objective source of information on all
prescription drugs, based on independent, scientific research.
Currently, pharmaceutical sales representatives are
one of the only ways doctors learn about new drugs on the market. Kohl
has also voiced concern that pharmaceutical companies are now developing
profiles of individual physicians’ prescribing information as part of
their marketing efforts. Drug companies and others purchase physician
information from the American Medical Association that enables them to
match prescribing data to specific physicians.
Grassley has conducted extensive oversight and
revealed large sums of unreported money going to leading research
doctors. He’s put pressure on the National Institutes of Health to help
achieve disclosure by fully exercising its authority to track financial
relationships between the drug and device industry and doctors
conducting federally sponsored medical research.
Grassley said the movement during the last year
toward greater tracking of financial relationships by individual drug
companies, professional associations and medical centers shows that the
reform movement is gaining traction. “The goal of our legislation is to
lay it all out, make the information available for everyone to see, and
let people make their own judgments about what the relationships mean or
don’t mean,” Grassley said.
“If something’s wrong, then exposure will help to
correct it. Like Justice Brandeis said almost a century ago, ‘sunshine
is the best disinfectant.’”
Grassley has also examined financial ties that
members of advisory boards for the Food and Drug Administration have
with the drug industry, and he issued a report two years ago on industry
support for continuing medical education.
He said he is considering MedPAC’s recommendation
that reporting requirements also be applied to industry payments to
medical organizations, hospitals, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacists
and pharmacies, continuing medical education groups, and medical
schools. \.
Jan. 26, 2009 – A bill introduced last week to
require the makers of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and biologics to
report all money they give doctors over $100 to Health & Human Services,
and for the agency to post these reports online, is an example of what
appears to be a trend being pushed by Democrats in Washington to post
more of the government’s activity on the Internet.