How big pharma could be influencing your healthcare
Researchers from the University of Sydney have analysed four years of Australian pharmaceutical industry-sponsored educational events for health workers dedicated to three conditions prone to overdiagnosis and overtreatment 鈥� depression, overactive bladder and osteoporosis.
Published in today, the research reveals that a few companies sponsored the majority of the events, GPs were often targeted, and most events offered attendees dinner. The provision of meals at such events has been shown in previous studies to influence prescribing behaviour.
, lead author and senior lecturer at the University of Sydney鈥檚 and , said the findings highlighted the need for professional education to be free from commercial sponsorship.
鈥淲e examined over 3,000 events with almost 100,000 attendances by healthcare professionals, from October 2011 to September 2015,鈥� she said.
鈥淛ust two companies sponsored over 70 percent of the depression events we identified, another two companies sponsored over 80 percent of overactive bladder events and two companies sponsored nearly 50 percent of osteoporosis events."
We are very concerned Australia鈥檚 transparency regulations are not robust enough to provide a full picture of the influence of such sponsorship.
鈥淚n most cases, the sponsors鈥� products are not considered the most cost-effective choices for the condition they purport to treat. In fact, several were considered unacceptable for PBS Reimbursement and others have been associated with cost, efficacy and safety concerns internationally," Dr Mintzes added.
鈥淲e also examined trends over time in sales and dispensing of lead sponsors鈥� relevant marketed drugs, but unfortunately could not assess causal links between increased prescribing and event attendance, as no information was publicly available on the identity of individual event participants.鈥澛�
The research extends on work by the , led by senior author , and was conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Indonesia, the University of Insubria and Bond University.
鈥淓arlier this year we developed a , to enable researchers, journalists and the public to more easily analyse the impact of pharmaceutical industry sponsored events on health professionals,鈥� Professor Bero, from the Faculty of Pharmacy, said.
As we dive deeper into these data, we are finding consistent and concerning levels of marketing aimed at healthcare professionals 鈥� concerning because we know marketing influences diagnoses and treatment, and, ultimately, people鈥檚 health.
鈥淧harmaceutical disclosure rules now also explicitly exclude food and beverages from reporting requirements, yet most sponsored events include both. Rather than seeing greater transparency around pharmaceutical marketing and its influences we are likely to experience less.
鈥淚n any case, transparency only gets us so far 鈥� a separation of education of our healthcare professionals from marketing activity is the ideal.鈥�