Canada’s opiate crisis has given new impetus to efforts to oblige pharmaceutical companies to report all benefits they confer on doctors.
Doctors may be influenced, says campaigner
“Evidence is starting to come out that very limited interaction or, sort of, even relationships with pharmaceutical companies can influence or alter the way that physicians actually prescribe medications,” says Dr. Andrew Boozary, leader of the Open Pharma Campaign.
“So that’s one of the things that we’re trying to get at is to ensure that any of those interactions or…relationships with pharmaceutical companies are open, accessible, and available to the public.” This could include such things as companies’ sponsoring education materials, invitations to talks or seminars on new drugs, offering positions on advisory boards or funding research in clinical trials.
‘Losing more people every day’
A call for pharmaceutical companies to make such information publicly available was made five years ago by the Canadian Medical Association which represents many of the country’s doctors. Boozary says the issue has recently become more pressing.
“We’re now in the middle of a national public health crisis with the opioid epidemic losing more people every day than we did in the 80s through the HIV epidemic… And we have no idea what the interactions are like between some actors or some drug companies like Purdue which manufactures narcotics and what their relationship is like with doctors or pain clinics in ensuring that their drugs get prescribed.”
A call for public pressure
Boozary wants the government to pass legislation obliging transparency on the part of the drug companies. He believes that public pressure is needed to convince legislators to do this and that is at the heart of the Open Pharma Campaign
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