E-DRUG: Medicines Australia Code of Conduct: breaches
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Australian Prescriber Volume 31, Number 6, December 2008
The Medicines Australia Code of Conduct guides the promotion of
prescription products by pharmaceutical companies.1
Each year Medicines Australia publishes a report, from its Code of
Conduct Committee, which details all the complaints that have been
received about advertising and other promotional activities.
The Table showing details of the companies, their events and the fines
can be seen at
http://www.australianprescriber.com/upload/pdf/articles/991.pdf
This year's report2 differs from previous reports because of increased
scrutiny of educational events.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission now requires
Medicines Australia to report details of the educational events held or
sponsored by member companies. This information is available on the
Medicines Australia website (at www.medicinesaustralia.com.au).
Medicines Australia appointed an independent auditor to check that the
educational events contained in the reports complied with the Code of
Conduct. This resulted in the Medicines Australia Monitoring Committee
referring 52 events to the Code of Conduct Committee. As there were
only 83 new complaints in 2007--08, educational events account for most
of the total.
The Table shows 37 cases where at least one breach of the Code of
Conduct was found. The majority of cases involved educational events
where the hospitality was deemed to be out of proportion to the
educational content of the event. The Code of Conduct still applies even
if the event is held overseas. These transgressions resulted in a range
of fines. A dinner for four specialists in Adelaide attracted a fine of
$10 000 while dinner for nine specialists at the Hotel de Paris in
Monaco attracted a fine of $50 000. Inappropriately luxurious and
extravagant hospitality resulted in one company being fined $175 000.
While most of the promotional activity was directed at prescribers,
nurses and pharmacists also attended events which breached the Code of
Conduct.
Detailed information about the complaints can be found in the
annual report of the Code of Conduct Committee.2
References
1. Medicines Australia. Code of Conduct. 15th ed. 2006.
Amended 2007.
http://www.medicinesaustralia.com.au [cited 2008 Nov 10]
2. Medicines Australia Code of Conduct Annual Report
2007/2008. Canberra: Medicines Australia; 2008.
http://www.medicinesaustralia.com.au [cited 2008 Nov 10]
--
*Beverley Snell*
*Senior Fellow*
*Centre for International Health*
*Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research & Public Health *
*GPO Box 2284, Melbourne 3001 Australia*
*http://www.burnet.edu.au/home/cih***
*Telephone 613 9282 2115 / 9282 2275*
*Fax 61 3 9282 2144 or 9282 2100*
*Time zone: 11 hours ahead of GMT.*
*email <bev@burnet.edu.au>*
*Site: Alfred Medical Research & Education Precinct (AMREP),*
*85 Commercial Road, Prahran 3181*