AMA launches education drive on drug industry gifts

Doctors and drug firm sales representatives are targets of an educational campaign intended to reduce excessive gifts to doctors that are considered unethical.

By Jay Greene, amednews staff. Sept. 17, 2001.

Physician organizations across the country are receiving informational packages on an AMA-spearheaded educational campaign entitled "What you should know about gifts to physicians from industry."

More than 5,000 packets are hitting the mailboxes of groups ranging from county medical societies to specialty societies. Drug firms and device manufacturers also will disseminate the information to their representatives.

What's in the packet

The physician educational campaign -- which includes brochures listing the ethical guidelines, sample advertisements and editorials for publication -- asks doctors to consider two important questions when a drug firm representative offers a gift. Does the gift directly benefit my patients? And, is the gift of minimal value?

"This issue is ripe for broad airing and discussion," said Alan Nelson, MD, chair of the gift campaign's working group. "The public is concerned with the cost of medication and the cost that goes into marketing. This [campaign] won't be flattering to the medical profession, but it is important for us to have on record that we are doing something about it."

As drug companies step up gift giving, Dr. Nelson said, many doctors are unaware of the AMA's 10-year-old ethical guidelines on gifts. Last year, drug firms spent nearly $5 billion, or 33% of all promotional expenses, to market their products at physician offices, said IMS Health, a Westport, Conn.-based market research firm.

The AMA's campaign features a Web site (http://www.ama-assn.org/go/ethicalgifts) with the information package and the ethics guidelines on gifts to doctors from the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs.

Physician groups receiving the information from the AMA include state, county and specialty societies; licensing boards; medical schools; and graduate medical education offices. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America also is mailing out similar packages to dozens of drug firms for dissemination to sales representatives.

Although medical organizations will use the material in various ways, Dr. Nelson hopes some take the lead from such groups as the American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine, which held an educational session on the ethics of gifts at its recent annual meeting.

To avoid federal regulation in the early 1990s, CEJA crafted the AMA's ethical guidelines on gifts, a policy the drug industry officially embraced.

"If the public believes there is an unhealthy relationship between industry and physicians and they begin to distrust the medical profession and the drug industry, then the pressure could increase for these practices to stop," said Dr. Nelson, a Fairfax, Va., internist and past AMA president.

"Maybe physicians will change when a patient sees [a gift] in a physician's office and asks if that [drug company gift] contributes to their high cost of medication," Dr. Nelson said. "The public reaction is key to how receptive physicians are to the education program."

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

What's in the packet

Commentary by Alan Nelson, MD, former AMA president, on when physicians should accept gifts and when they should not.
The AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs opinion on gifts to physicians from industry and questions and answers on the guidelines.
Sample advertisements and editorials for publication.
Pocket cards on how to avoid inappropriate gifts and physicians' professional obligations to the public.
A letter to physicians from Richard Corlin, MD, AMA president, explaining the need for the educational campaign.
A list of the campaign's sponsoring organizations.

Source: AMA's Working Group for the Communication of Ethical Guidelines for Gifts to Physicians from Industry