From DrugWonks.com:
In a recent blog entry on DrugWonks.com, Peter Pitts, president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, called out the federal government for putting its focus on and committing its dollars to programs that support “academic detailing,” a practice largely conducted by pharmacists to help healthcare professionals better understand medical treatment effectiveness (and supposedly to counter detailing done by pharmaceutical companies).
According to Pitts, although the federal government has awarded five academic detailing grants, funded in part with $29.5 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, “only a few small studies demonstrate that academic detailing reduces overall healthcare costs (direct and/or indirect) – and most only demonstrate reduced prescription drug expenditures.”
Further, he explains that measuring only drug expenditures and not health outcomes is a flawed premise. “Skimping on a more expensive medicine today but paying for an avoidable hospital stay later is a fool’s errand,” Pitts notes. Indeed, he cites a New England Healthcare Institute estimate that $290 billion in healthcare expenditures could be avoided if medication adherence were improved.
In Pitts’ view, there are number of unasked and unanswered questions regarding academic detailing, including what safeguards are in place to make sure unbiased information is disseminated, which information should be allowed in academic detailing programs, and what the ramifications of off-label academic detailing and other enforcement issues are. “The worst part about rushing headlong into academic detailing is that there is no clear articulation or transparency regarding the specific rules and regulations that will govern the behavior and activities of…detailers.”
Another important idea has been advanced by Ken Berkowitz, veteran industry activist and member of the Legacy Board of the Coalition for Healthcare Communication. Berkowitz has called for FDA regulation of academic details, including limits on off-label discussion. It is unfair and bad public policy, Berkowitz argues, to allow non-sponsors to include messages not approved by the FDA.
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With the amount of negative attention lately surrounding relationships between physicians and industry, some doctors have had enough. In response to the recent criticisms, Bradley P. Knight, MD, FACC, FHRS, Editor-in-Chief of the Electrophysiology Lab Digest, wrote an article defending the “Legitimate Relationships Between Physicians and Industry.”
Read a summary of the article in Tom Sullivan’s Policy and Medicine blog. Sullivan includes a link to the full text of Dr. Knight’s article.
January 7, 2011– The United States Supreme Court today will hear First Amendment appeal to Vermont’s Rx data use ban.
Earlier First Circuit federal appeals court decision set up the Supreme Court appeal.
Late last year, the 2nd Circuit Court invalidated the Vermont version of the Rx data restriction law, finding it a violation of the First Amendment. This 2nd Circuit decision is contrary to a 1st Circuit Court decision on similar facts, setting up the US Supreme Court appeal granted today. Although a victory in the Supreme Court is not assured, the Supreme Court has fiercely protected commercial speech in virtually nearly every case before it since the “Central Hudson” test was announced by the Court in the 1970′s.
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From Manhattan Institute:
An active partnership between science and commerce underlies Americans’ high standard of living, including their state of health and the medical discoveries and treatments that have steadily improved it. But a mounting wariness toward collaborations between employees of research institutions and public agencies and those working for pharmaceutical companies and the like, as expressed in increasingly broad conflict-of-interest rules and prohibitions, threatens to disrupt what has been a wide-ranging and productive exchange of knowledge and information.
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From World of DTC Marketing:
The PLoS study reveals the obvious: pharmaceutical marketing affects prescribing. Pharma would not spend all the money they do on marketing if it didn’t work. In addition, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make providers (and some might argue the public) aware of their products.
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From Medical Marketing & Media:
Industry support for continuing medical education (CME) has been waning the last 2 years, but some say the bottom may be in sight.
“My own guess is that we’re near the bottom for commercial support dollars, and that within the next few years we’ll be reporting increases, not decreases in the amount of industry funding of certified CME,” said John Kamp, executive director, Coalition for Healthcare Communication.
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From Lilly:
Lilly is committed to providing “Answers That Matter.” That means not only discovering and developing innovative medicines – which we believe offer the best value in healthcare – but also engaging in ongoing dialogue with patients, providers, payers, and the public. Our vision at Lilly is to deliver improved outcomes for individual patients.
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In our informative slideshow, John Kamp, executive director of the Coalition, discusses steps the FDA should take to improve the information required to be given patients when prescribed a drug. The topics covered in the slideshow include
- Who We Are, Mission & Passions
- FDA Correctly Seizing the Moment
- Bold Action Needed
- What Needs to Happen
- How Can We Help?
View the slideshow
We invite comments!
Read this article on Tom Sullivan’s Policy and Medicine blog
…then please come back here and comment.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) has proposed new rules to amend its regulations on the “Responsibility of Applicants for Promoting Objectivity in Research for Which Public Health Service (PHS) Funding is Sought and Responsible Prospective Contractors.”
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