pharmaceutical industry: A patient cured is a lost customer

  A new scientific study published by the British Medical journal  has highlighted a conflict of interest existing between the  pharmaceutical industry and doctors which aim at preventing doctors from  reporting side effect of medicines.  

 Could the remuneration given to doctors possibly influence their judgement regarding side effect? 

Post  marketing studies allow pharmaceutical companies to test the efficacity  and success of their medicines based on doctors's opinion. This pratice  has been largely criticised for being nothing more than “marketing  masquerading as research", meaning research which purpose are solely  commercial motives, not scientific ones. Futhermore, the  confidenticiality clauses signed by both parties prevents physicians  from reporting side effect to health authorities. 

Before being  put on the market, drugs have to go through battery of tests done by the  health authorities and specialized institutions.  After being put to  sale, pharmaceutical companies record the sales and the efficacy of the  medicine in real conditions. In order to collect relevant data, they ask  doctors to report any eventual side effect of those medicines. This  seems like a well thought system... in theory. Only, uncertainty exists  about whether the amount of the remuneration received by physicians  could biased their judgement.

 German pharmacovigilance put aside by laboratories

the  recent study published on the British Medical Journal are based on the  observation of 558 post marketing studies done in Germany.  The average  earning per participating physicians per study was 19 424 euros (the  highest remuneration documented by this study being 2 million of euros),  which is about 441 euros per patient tested. Among those 558 studies,  no cases of drug's side effect was reported to the German  pharmacovigilance. While it could only be a coicidence the questions  remains: Are doctors influence by the amount of their remuneration? Is  there a possibility of them being removed from the studies should they  report on side effects ?

Impartial institution: a solution?

The  authors of the article highlight the ambiguity of the confidentiality  clauses signed by the physicians which prevent them from reporting any  side effect to health authorities and make it mandatory for them to  report only to the laboratory itself. Wouldn't it be more pertinent to  instaure an impartial institution between the doctors and the  laboratories, for safety and objectivity's sake ?

Sources: British Medical Journal, Multinational's observatory