Though Australia was ahead of most countries in taking steps toward greater transparency in pharmaceutical companies’ financial ties to health professionals, a new study concludes the reporting standards are inadequate. In an analysis published in PLoS Medicine, researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto and elsewhere conclude that Australian reporting standards are not comprehensive enough.

 

Since mid-2007 Medicines Australia, the pharmaceutical industry representative body, has been required to report the details of every industry-sponsored function and educational event for health professionals. Despite the fact that Australian pharmaceutical companies have to disclose details about the venue and total cost of an event they sponsor, as well as its attendees and the hospitality offered, the researchers say companies still do not have to declare the names of speakers at these events, the financial ties between companies and speakers, and the role that companies played in speaker selection.

 

The analysis showed that there were about 600 industry-sponsored events per week across Australia in 2007. Thirty-five percent of the sponsored events were held in restaurants, hotels or function centers – hospitality (food, beverages and accommodation) accounted for $17 million Australian dollars of the $31 million spent on functions. Oncologists (17.8 percent) and psychiatrists (15.2 percent) were the medical subspecialists most frequently hosted at events. Family physicians were at a third of the events and nurses at a quarter. Although expenditure at individual events was often modest, the cumulative expenditure was high, particularly on medical specialists prescribing high-cost drugs. Oncologists and cardiologists received the highest expenditures per head expenditure.

 

David Henry of Toronto’s Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and colleagues argue that setting a dollar threshold below which details of industry-sponsored events do not need to be disclosed, as is the case in some jurisdictions in the United States, is not adequate for transparency. “It is not only the size of the gift that matters," the authors write, “it is the sense of reciprocity it engenders.”

 

The authors say that the Australian reporting standards do not do enough to allow assessment of educational content of industry-sponsored events, a particular concern because doctors can be awarded continuing medical education points at these events. The authors recommend that the role of the company in suggesting the educational topic and event speakers must be revealed. They conclude that while it might be unrealistic to ban all contact between pharmaceutical companies and health professionals, more work is required to make those relationships completely transparent.