The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has announced that drug companies must start publicly releasing information about different types of payments to Australia’s physicians, reported The Saturday Paper.
“Once the new transparency regime is up and running next year you’ll actually be able to check whether your doctor has been working for Big Pharma, and how much they’ve been paid, albeit with a threshold that will overlook some small yet still significant sums,” reported The Saturday Paper. “It may be that you look at that psychiatrist differently next time he prescribes a powerful anti-psychotic for your child or elderly parent, when you know he’s been regularly earning $1000 a pop from the manufacturer for promotional presentations.”
Public scrutiny of Big Pharma, doctor relationships (The Saturday Paper, May 2, 2015)
Good.
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The question is how exactly they are going to enforce it? Without a system of punishment for “non-compliance” in reporting I doubt it will have much impact.
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