New Jersey is considering outlawing much collaboration between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. In New rules would curb payments to doctors from drug companies, Stephen Stirling and Erin Petenko reports for NJ.com:
Gov. Chris Christie proposed new rules Thursday that would prohibit prescribers from accepting large payments from pharmaceutical companies, who annually dole out tens of millions of dollars to state doctors in hopes of selling their wares.
Citing the opioid crisis as justification, Christie said the rules would prevent drug- and device-makers from providing physicians with "lavish meals" and uncapped compensation for speaking engagements, consulting work, and other services.
"While the vast majority of doctors care for their patients honorably and professionally, their education about many of the drugs they are prescribing comes too often from pharmaceutical sales people, who may not always provide an objective analysis of the human and social impacts the drugs may have," Christie said.
I left these comments:
Do you want your doctor to have all available information when treating you? This new regulation would hamper your doctor’s access to important information about new drugs.
You can always count on politicians to exploit a crisis to expand the power of the state and restrict freedom. In this case, the “opioid crisis.” Not to minimize the seriousness of this addiction. But this is a prime case of punishing the innocent many for the wrongdoing of the few, which is inherent in one-size-fits-all government regulation. Note:
"While the vast majority of doctors care for their patients honorably and professionally, their education about many of the drugs they are prescribing comes too often from pharmaceutical sales people, who may not always provide an objective analysis of the human and social impacts the drugs may have," Christie said.
So all doctors and pharmaceutical sales people get regulated because a few doctors are not honorable and professional, and sales people “may” not be objective? It’s a backdoor smear of all doctors and pharmaceutical sales people, which amounts to preemptive law—assuming guilt without proof of any wrongdoing. This is the dirty little secret of government regulation: It unjustly punishes the innocent many in the name of punishing the guilty few.
And what better way to get educated than to consult with the foremost experts, the companies that actually make the stuff? You don’t have to rely blindly on what a salesperson says. You can and maybe should get independent confirmation. But to cut off this starting point of education is crazy.
Christie’s regulation also harms commerce in the medical product industry. This can only harm patients, because only by getting products from producers to patients, via doctors, can patients be helped by the products. Inhibiting the transfer of knowledge between producers and providers harms commerce and thus patients. By harming medical companies’ ability to market their products, their profits are curbed and so too are their ability to invest in new products. Christie proposes to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
What’s behind regulations like this one? Doctor Thomas P. Stossel says the “conflict of interest movement,” which he calls a mania, is behind it. Irrationally biased against and suspicious of the profit motive, the conflict of interest movement is contributing to “a prosecutorial extortion racket that has extracted enormous sums away from the [pharmaceutical] industry’s ability to develop new products by forcing it to pay fines for marketing behavior that has caused no damages and arguably provides mainly benefits.” Stossel lays it all out in his book “Pharmaphobia: How the conflict of interest myth undermines American medical innovation.” He writes:
“The medical product industry . . . provides physicians with the tools to save lives and reduce suffering. . . The public and the medical profession must demand a stop to the damage caused by conflict-of-interest regulations. It impedes transfer to physicians of important information regarding new options for patient care. It is a force built on shadows and lies. We cannot allow the conflict-of-interest propaganda machine to continue unchallenged.”
Amen.
As Christie himself states, and quoted in the article, not all doctors and sales persons are scoundrels. Most are not. The few that are should be handled through criminal law, such as anti-bribery statutes, under the just rules of evidence. Don’t punish the innocent. The government has no right to cut off legitimate marketing and collaboration without any evidence of wrongdoing, as if such practice is ipso-facto proof of lack of integrity. Such broad-brush regulation is fundamentally immoral. Lawmakers should seriously consider whether this bill does more harm than good.
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Of course, doctors can refuse payments from or collaboration with pharmaceutical sales reps anytime they choose. Doctors’ practices can set rules and limits, etcetera. But like all regulations, this new Christie rule paints with a broad brush, punishing the innocent many for the wrongdoing of the few.
Related Reading:
Pharmaphobia: How the conflict of interest myth undermines American medical innovation—Thomas P. Stossel
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