Last updated: 2 July 2008
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New guidelines on disclosure of drug funding
New Europe-wide guidelines from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) – of which the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) is a member – came into effect on 1 July 2008 requiring member corporations to disclose financial support of patient groups.
These guidelines however, do not include the requirement that the pharma industry disclose their funding of medical organisations, educational events and financial arrangements with doctors. They only state that this should be encouraged.
In Australia strict requirements are already in place and in the United States companies are making commitments to release information on financial support for medical education.
This means that Europe is beginning to lag behind other regions of the developed world when it comes to the disclosure of drug industry funding.
In the absence of such requirements it means that consumers are left unaware of possible relationships between drug companies and their physician or family doctor. Such relationships may include the sponsoring of professional health associations or doctors attendance at foreign conferences and medical education programmes.
Visit www.marketingoverdose.org for more on CI's response to these new guidelines.
CI launches new drug marketing report
A new report launched Consumers International (CI) in November 2007 revealed the extent to which pharmaceutical companies are trying to boost sales by seeking the favour of health professionals in the developing world.
The report, Drugs, Doctors and Dinners, examines how the world’s leading drug companies, desperate to allay falling profits in Western markets, are attempting to sway doctor prescription habits and advice to consumers. It reveals how doctors are offered everything from mousepads to motorbikes and how pervasive marketing contributes to 50% of medicines in the developing world being wrongly prescribed.
The report is part of Marketing Overdose, CI’s ongoing campaign against irresponsible drug promotion. This campaign is calling on governments and the pharmaceutical industry to ban gifts to doctors, increase transparency in funding of patient groups, and support independent provision of information about healthcare.
World Health Assembly calls for action on unethical drug marketing
The World Health Assembly (WHA), held 14-23 May 2007, passed an important new resolution that included a call for governments to take action on unethical drug marketing. CI is now stepping up its campaigning on this important issue, building on the success of World Consumer Rights Day 2007 and this big step forward at the WHA. Please:
- Write to your Minister for Health to highlight this new resolution and ask what action your government plans to take. You can use this draft letter.
- Continue collecting examples of drug marketing and send them to CI.
About the campaign
The Consumers International (CI) global campaign aims to hold corporations and governments to account in protecting consumers from unethical drug promotion, particularly for prescription-only medication.
Examples of unethical drug promotion are:
Promoting misleading or false claims about a drug.
Deliberately suppressing risks and side effects of a drug.
Providing financial incentives to doctors for prescribing a drug to consumers.
Using disease awareness campaigns for drug promotion rather than health promotion.
CI's research base reveals that pharmaceutical companies are being allowed to get away with consistently breaching normative and regulatory frameworks intended to ensure that drug promotion and health research is conducted ethically, and without detriment to consumer health and safety.
Drug companies have found new and effective ways to influence consumer opinion by:
- sponsoring patient pressure groups
- funding disease awareness campaigns
- hosting internet websites, and
- offering hospitality to medical experts.
More on the campaign
For more information visit the Marketing Overdose campaign website.
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