The ACCC’s proposal (Australian 28/6) that drug company largesse to doctors be clearly identified on their website would indeed make the potential influence of this marketing money on doctors prescribing habits more transparent. It is a tiny step in the right direction.
However, it cannot address the reality that many doctors believe that the $1 billion per year the industry spends on marketing in Australia (most of which is spent on us, the doctors), has no influence on our prescribing habits in favour of new, more expensive, but not always better drugs. Doctors will continue to believe they are above influence, which means that they continue to believe that the highly profitable drug industry is wasting that $1 billion.
What is required is an investment by Government in educating doctors, and reducing their dependence on the industry for information about drugs. The Government currently spends a miserly $10 million on drug education, one tenth of the industry budget. It is a poor competitor.
The result.... drug costs rocket. Patients
pay or miss out.
Dr Tim Woodruff
President
Doctors Reform Society
Published in
The Australian
Monday, 30 June 2003
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