MONTPELIER – A bill that would tighten reporting requirements for doctors who accept money from pharmaceutical companies and place limitations on such gifts has nearly unanimous support from members of the Vermont Senate, according to backers of the legislation

The bill, which also has support from the Vermont Medical Society, would strengthen legislation that established a database of drug company payments to physicians, including honorariums and other perquisites: The new proposal would place an outright ban on many of those gifts and expand reporting requirements for others…………..

“Patients need to have confidence in the prescribing actions of doctors,” said Dr. John Brumsted, president of the medical society.

I did a diary about this in Dec.but now that the legislature is acting it may worth a reminder of what this bill will not do.

In Vermont  pharmaceutical companies spent $3.1 million to promote their medicines to doctors during a 12-month period ending in June 2007.Peter Shumlin has filed a bill to put a lid on this with reporting requirements that will promote confidence doctors are not making judgments based perks from drug makers .

This bill is one step,but a link in the chain of pharma money remains secret and intact.Last December when discussing this new legislation Shumlin said he envisioned changes to the state law that would only allow the pharmaceutical industry to keep secret very limited information, such as donations to support academic research.Why the exclusion ?This information may be limited but its importance is sizable .Lobbying and campaign contributions are subject to transparency laws,why not pharmaceutical research funding ? Pharmaceutical companies are money making corporations and no matter how altruistic it may seem their motives are to make money.To have confidence in acedemic research the ability to ‘follow the money’ is needed.

“Drug company funding of medical research is not going to end – nor should it entirely stop. Yet a new set of federal rules dictating the transparency and direction of such funding is desperately needed to redress a dangerously corrupt system. It’s not enough to simply have doctors more explicitly report their incomes from drug companies, though it is a very useful first step.”  Lawrence Diller, M.D.

http://www.timesargus.com/arti…

http://www.timesargus.com/arti…

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…

While former radio talk show host and author Al Franken is consistently described in corporate media reports as “comedian Al Franken,” it seems it’s the legal team of former Senator Norm Coleman who are providing the laughs in the first days of the U.S. Senate election contest up in Minnesota.

When even the unapologetic, rightwing, “Franken is stealing the election!” nutcases and conspiracy theorists at Powerline describe Coleman’s legal case as being of “Three Stooges quality,” you know these guys must really be falling apart.

(Coleman’s Continuing Comedy of Errors: Days 2 & 3 at the U.S. Senate Election Contest in MN, Bradblog, 01/28/09)

I suspect Vermont is not unique with our governor seeking to slash spending and cut jobs to “balance the budget” while simultaneously requesting that the feds borrow copious amounts of money to give to the states to create jobs and provide for necessities.

This is nonsense.  

In order for a state to be eligible for stimulus $$ the requirement should be that they cannot cut state spending below the previous year’s.

Otherwise the “stimulus” $ just gets swallowed up filling the hole created by the state.

PJ