Revealing new data on how the pharmaceutical industry funds many physician associations

2023-10-06 13:00:31

The Fair Access to Medicine Association (AAJM) publishes very interesting information on the magazine’s research area British Medical Journal (BMJ) on the corruption of doctors at the hands of the pharmaceutical industry.

It is a topic that I denounced in my book Doctors laboratory. Journey inside medicine and the pharmaceutical industry (Peninsula, 2011). For its preparation I had the testimony and documentation of more than 20 medical representatives.

We now know that royal schools in the United Kingdom have received over £9 million in marketing payments from drug and medical device companiess since 2015. The Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners were the biggest recipients of money from the industry, according to the research: £2.8m and £2.4m respectively.

The curious thing about the BMJ report is how justify this corruption the different medical associations.

Royal College of Physicians: «We publish the names of the corporate partners who provide over £10,000 of support in our annual report.”

Royal College of Ophthalmologists: “We offer opportunities for sponsor our work and activities through collaborative partnerships. “We only choose to work with potential funding partners who have the same shared goals as us.”

Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health: “Our funds received from pharmaceutical companies and medical technology companies have been considerably less than 1% of university revenues…”

Royal College of Emergency Medicine: “Partnership and sponsorships form a vital part of the organization’s fundraising mix.”

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists: “The industry’s annual revenue has remained below 2% of total revenue.”

Royal College of Surgeons of England: “Industry payments are a small proportion of total income. They are a pragmatic way of funding some of our activities without increasing the financial burden on our members. “We are very aware of conflicts of interest, and we do not accept funds that could undermine our reputation.”

In the United Kingdom these schools They are not required to disclose these payments; They are not included in their annual reports and are only available through voluntary industry transparency initiatives, which have serious limitations.

Some universities have already cut ties. For example, the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland has refused since 2012 to accept sponsorships from pharmaceutical companies, pointing out that research shows “overwhelmingly” that doctors are influenced by industry marketing and that this affects the prescription.

What happens in Spain?

In Spain a few years ago the industry made the “voluntary” decision to offer on the laboratories’ websites (usually in quite hidden places), what each doctor charges and in concept of what.

For example, I entered the website of Pfizer Spain. He directed me to the “Committed” section, then “To Transparency” and then “Transparency Report.” Here we can read:

Photo by Karolina Grabowska.

As a company affiliated with the Farmaindustria Code of Good Practices for the Pharmaceutical Industry, since 2016 we have published the transfers of value and payments made to health professionals and organizations in the form of donations, training activities, provision of services and research and development corresponding to the previous year.

And they add: All our interest groups can consult them through the following website.

This is where the problems begin because they tell you that “in order to access the data it is necessary read the content of each of the stages” and that means that you have to swallow a story about how well they do things.

Each one explained in a graph that, if you don’t open it, you don’t go to the next one.

I don’t know about you, but I have tried to do it and after the third graph it no longer opens. So we aborted the operation; impossible to access data with which Pfizer finances many doctors and other entities.

I have nothing against this company, I promise you that I have handpicked it to set an example for you, but you see that the matter is not easy.

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