What Glaxo Gave To Doctors Down Under
2 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // June 7th, 2011 // 7:04 am
Amid growing scandal over freebies lavished on Australian health department workers, GlaxoSmithKline has become the first drugmaker to reveal the amount of money spent on doctors and health organizations in the land Down Under. Slightly more than $2 million was doled out last year, and the amount was about evenly split between the public and private sectors.
Of the total, $371,659 was spent on individual grants to healthcare professionals to attend domestic and overseas conferences. About $775,000 was paid for consulting, speaking, clinical trial work, advisory boards and medical copywriting, while more than $900,000 was used for sponsorships, donations and grants to health-related organizations, according to The West Australian. There was no breakdown, though, for money spent on public health departments.
Glaxo’s medical director in the region, Camilla Chong, says the payments were not inducements to prescribe drugs, but part of building close relationships. “There’s no point in us developing clinical studies based on what we know. We need to make sure they absolutely make clinical sense, have practical value at the patient end and that’s why these close working relationships are absolutely important,” she tells the paper. “It’s about attaining what’s best for the development of the medicine for the patient, ultimately.”
The disclosure comes two weeks after the paper reported more than $1.4 million worth of gifts from drug and other health companies were accepted by WA Health Department employees between December 2009 and April 2011, including more than 350 trips to cities including Vienna and Brussels. Departmental “sponsored travel” is under review by Auditor General Colin Murphy (back story).
The $2 million, by the way, is a pittance compared to what Glaxo spent last year in the US on doctors - a total of more than $96 million. In fact, the amount spent on docs and other healthcare professionals in each of more than a dozen states was higher than what was reported in Australia, according to this database compiled by ProPublica.
champagne thx to jmrosenfeld on flickr
original industry insider
Glaxo has given a lot to doctors down under. However, my reference is anatomic, not geographic.
Walter
The possibility that physician prescribing habits are going to be influenced by pens, coffee cups, or even speaker’s fees is real, but secondary. The connection between receiving a payment and writing an Rx is indirect, and the vast majority of physicians receive only a trivial percentage of their income from this source.
On the other hand, the decision to perform a procedure, run a test, or schedule a follow up appointment leads directly to payment, and is almost entirely within the individual physician’s discretion. Run a procedure - receive a payment. I know of no greater, more direct conflict of interest that is so completely tolerated by our society. This is the issue that absolutely has to be addressed if we are going to get healthcare spending under control.