James wrote:
It is a sad day for over regulation when the EyreCare programme by a division of general practice and sponsored and supported by a pharmaceutical company is killed off “Due to regulatory changes arising from the new Medicines Australia Code of Conduct”.
I'd be interested to know precisely what "regulatory changes" Pfizer allege have killed off the EyreCare programme.
To my knowledge, the only new change in Medicines Australia Code of Conduct is a requirement by the ACCC that Medicines Australia should reveal how much money member companies spend on educational events for doctors, including hospitality and entertainment.
I can't understand why a requirement to disclose the costs of Pfizer's support for the EyreCare programme should be a reason to withdraw support.
http://www.eyrecare.com.au/ states, "The Eyre Care software has been developed by Pfizer in partnership with the Eyre Peninsula Division of General Practice and Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (NSW branch) and with the support of the Australian Divisions of General Practice."
If the partnership was at arm's length, if only financial support was provided, and if the software does not influence prescribing through embedded advertising or other decision support features that specifically favour Pfizer products, I see nothing that would breech Medicines Australia Code of Conduct
I've cc'd this to Pfizer in the hope they can shed more light on this matter.
Cheers Ken -- Dr. Ken Harvey Adjunct Senior Research Fellow School of Public Health, La Trobe University http://www.medreach.com.au VOIP: +61 (03) 9029 0634; Mobile +61 (04) 1918 1910 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
