Excellent step toward more transparency in medicine
Nicholas Kusnetz reports for ProPublica:
This week, Massachusetts became the first state to post an online database of payments from drug and medical device companies to the state’s health care providers. The searchable database covers reports from more than 280 companies and subsidiaries.
The new database, detailed on Monday by the Boston Globe — one of our Dollars for Docs partners — is a result of a 2008 state law regulating industry conduct. The database lists nearly $36 million spent from July through December of 2009 for speaking, consulting, food, educational programs, marketing studies and charitable donations.
Minnesota has for years posted similar payments in that state, but has not compiled each company’s reports together into one database. Minnesota’s list also does not include medical device manufacturers.
Dollars for Docs, our ongoing project examining the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and physicians, captures payments for drug promotion and marketing across all states from seven major drug companies. The reports in Minnesota and Massachusetts are just snapshots of the national picture and, in the case of Massachusetts, a limited snapshot at that.
Massachusetts’s law requires . . .
