{"id":45547,"date":"2014-04-12T10:47:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-12T14:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=45547"},"modified":"2014-04-12T12:39:32","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T16:39:32","slug":"your-nose-is-growing-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2014\/04\/12\/your-nose-is-growing-longer\/","title":{"rendered":"your nose is growing longer…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
PhRMA: Sunshine Not Driving Docs Indoors<\/a><\/div>\n
MedPage Today<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n
By David Pittman<\/div>\n
Apr 10, 2014<\/div>\n

Doctors haven’t disengaged from drug companies in the months since the tracking of financial relationships between them started, several pharmaceutical executives here said. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act required drug companies to track gifts and other payments to physicians starting August 1, making them public later this year – leading to fears that public shame or misunderstanding might come of doctors’ relationship to pharma.<\/p>\n

But those ties have pretty much stayed put, different leaders of the drug industry said at the annual meeting of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America<\/font><\/strong> [PhRMA<\/a>]. "We’ve seen virtually no change in the way we interact with physicians," Pfizer CEO Ian Read said at a press conference. Celgene chief Bob Hugin, who doubles as PhRMA board chair this year, said his company has seen the same thing, and the law has had "no impact on the way we deal with physicians."<\/p>\n

Each man shook his head "no" when asked directly if doctors seemed more hesitant to interact with pharmaceutical companies now that the law was in place. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will make public on Sept. 30 payments and other "transfers of value" drug companies report giving doctors. With a handful of exceptions, drug companies and group purchasing organizations must report payments or gifts in excess of $10 made to physicians on a yearly basis. The first year will include information collected between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31. CMS will allow physicians to review and protest inaccuracies starting this summer.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

"Who wants to go to a doctor that is not the most well informed, the most aware of what’s happening?" Hugin said. "We really want to make sure that this act, which is designed to make things more transparent, does that but doesn’t change behavior because people misuse the data and apply in a way that implies something inappropriate." He suggested that the Sunshine Act may become an issue when and if people mischaracterize the data when it becomes public. That’s why companies and doctors must be proactive later this year when the data are released to make sure it is presented accurately and fairly, he indicated.<\/p>\n

"We welcome the transparency, and I think physicians will welcome the transparency because the relationships are highly ethical between the industry and physicians," Read said. The Justice Department last year accused drug-making giant Novartis of kickbacks it paid to doctors by holding "educational events" on fishing trips and at Hooters restaurants that were little more than parties.<\/div>\n
hat tip to Alto…<\/font><\/strong> <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/a>I always wondered what they talked about at a Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America<\/font><\/strong> meeting [PhRMA<\/a>]. Besides the Sunshine Law, the image on the left from their website addresses another such topic – the academic·pharmaceutical·NIH Axis<\/font><\/strong>. Actually, when I followed the link on their site, there was an even bigger picture slide that included many other elements – almost all of the usual subjects:<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s an impressive universe they have there. I noticed that they left out the ghostwriters. Maybe they’re the ones walking around outside on their virtual campus. On the site, there’s something called the CHART PACK<\/a> with a number of charts which make the case that the PhRMA world is an unfairly oppressed place. Looks like an Insel blog<\/a>. My editorial comment is the graphic on the right, but take a look yourself.<\/p>\n

Well, what about the claim in the article that the Sunshine Act is having no effect on the doctors in the PhRMA service? Is it true? Or is this more spin<\/em> to launch a campaign against the Sunshine Act itself? With this crowd, one can never know. I’m sure that for some doctors who have banked on PhRMA pay [another pun intended], losing some patients because of reporting is immaterial in the face of their PhRMA earnings. But the overall impact won’t be felt for some time. Who knows?<\/p>\n

But one thing we do know right now. This is some remarkable copy written by the PhRMA PR department:<\/div>\n
\n
"Who wants to go to a doctor that is not the most well informed, the most aware of what’s happening<\/font><\/strong>?" Hugin said.<\/em><\/div>\n

"We really want to make sure that this act, which is designed to make things more transparent, does that but doesn’t change behavior because people misuse the data and apply in a way that implies something inappropriate<\/font><\/strong>." He suggested that the Sunshine Act may become an issue when and if people mischaracterize the data when it becomes public…<\/em><\/p>\n

"We welcome the transparency, and I think physicians will welcome the transparency because the relationships are highly ethical between the industry and physicians<\/font><\/strong>," Read said…<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
My mom would’ve said, "Pinochio, I think your nose is growing longer and longer!<\/em>" I still wonder how adults can write things like that and deliver them with a straight face…<\/div>\n
\n
UPDATE<\/font><\/strong>: I couldn’t leave it alone. So here’s just one slide from the CHART PACK<\/a>…<\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PhRMA: Sunshine Not Driving Docs Indoors MedPage Today By David Pittman Apr 10, 2014 Doctors haven’t disengaged from drug companies in the months since the tracking of financial relationships between them started, several pharmaceutical executives here said. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act required drug companies to track gifts and other payments to physicians starting August 1, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45547"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45582,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45547\/revisions\/45582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}