Following the lead of the Legislature and Patrick administration, the Public Health Council adopted regulations Wednesday loosening a gift ban that is part of a state law restricting marketing by drug and medical device makers.
New rules had been expected since July, when the budget signed by Governor Deval Patrick included an amendment permitting companies to pick up doctors’ tabs for “modest” meals and refreshments served during informational sessions about their products.
Comments
If we need " Big Brother" to monitor what our Doctors eat and drink we should all pack it in. That makes ME ill.
Will conferences on Mondays be meatless?
The state's health care plan is our own Fiscal Cliff, more state subsidized care/population than any other state, the most expensive care in the nation, and hemorrhaging cash as Obama will pull out the Federal donation in 2019 leaving Mass alone to pay the bill.....and this council is asking to have conference menus submitted? Seriously?
What a terrible step backwards. Drug money talks.
Gee... how trusting. . . letting a state public health agency write regulations . . . maybe like the ones that public health regulators wrote and enforced for firms like New England Compouding . . . and that employed a chemist whose work with alleged drug evidence in criminal cases seems to have caused havoc for police and prosecutors. Is there some reason to think the current Public Health Council's loosening of rules supposed to govern temptation for Massachusetts doctors is an indication that a situation is getting better for patients of those doctors?
The arrogance and hypocrisy of the Massachusetts Legislature in regulating physicians in the state in this manner would be laughable except for the fact that they waste their time and energy on this rather than rising unemployment, failing infrastructure (including newly built Big Dig tunnels), and leaky gas mains. In their effort to make sure that doctors might not get a free martini because they might be led to order a more expensive drug, the Legislature somehow allows Boston to have the THIRD highest cost of medical care person in the United States. Even more laughable, their efforts are nobly aimed at preventing doctors from being corrupted by the Big Pharma, while they themselves are easily the most corrupt and buy-able political body in America. You need look no further than the recent Highway Safety leader who bought her position by favors to McGovern and Murray, and to the Chelsea Housing Authority (and son) who purchased same favors through Murray, and to the Probation Office fiasco with O'Brien and company, and to the fact that our last three state Legislature leaders have either been thrown in jail or had their licenses to practice revoked; it goes on and on. And THEY are the ones who harumph and harumph about how doctors can be corrupted by drug companies? I guess they know how it can happen since it defines their daily life in politics in the only state where the politicians shower AFTER they get home from work rather than before.