More states consider laws for reporting industry gifts

Most legislation is patterned after a model bill that restricts the reporting requirement to drug manufacturers.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. May 9, 2005.

They say that "information equals power" and, in more than a dozen states, there are lawmakers who hope information may also equal lower prescription drug costs.

Legislators in at least 14 states introduced bills this year that would require pharmaceutical sales representatives to file reports detailing the gifts they give to physicians. Drug manufacturers are opposing the bills. Most medical societies are keeping an eye on the bills but haven't gotten involved so far because doctors won't see the financial and administrative burdens that the drug industry would see if the legislation passes.

"Any legislation that makes drug company blandishments to doctors transparent is an improvement, but it would have to include education support," Marcia Angell, MD, the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, said in an e-mail.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Sharon Treat, executive director for the National Legislative Assn. on Prescription Drug Prices, reporting bills have been introduced in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington. Measures were introduced but defeated in Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Oregon state Rep. Carolyn Tomei said the reporting bill she sponsored wouldn't require doctors to do anything. "I think they already have more than enough paperwork."

That seems to ring true in most states that have introduced legislation. "I think that the legislators get it," said Bernie Horn, policy director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Policy Alternatives and author of the model bill that most of the state legislation is patterned after. "Restricting the requirements to drug manufacturers is becoming fairly uniform."