LANSING – In a move to increase consumer protection in Michigan and hold drug companies accountable, State Representative Joel Sheltrown (D-West Branch) today announced a plan that requires drug companies to fully disclose how they spend their marketing money and bans lavish gifts such as extravagant trips and meals to doctors.
"While consumers and seniors living on fixed incomes are pinching pennies to pay for their prescription drugs, the wealthy drug companies are spending billions on marketing," Sheltrown said. "They spend that money on things like fancy lunches and lavish trips for doctors. This plan will demand greater transparency from big drug companies and shine the light on how they spend their money."
The plan would:
- Require companies to report all drug advertising and marketing expenditures, including gifts to doctors and other health care workers.
- Require companies to report research and development expenditures.
- Ban lavish drug company gifts to doctors and limit gifts to $100 worth a year.
- Establish a searchable Web site that details drug companies' marketing expenses and gifts to doctors, which would be maintained by the Department of Community Health.
Wealthy drug companies spend more than $21 billion annually on marketing.[1] Merck, maker of the now-banned painkiller Vioxx, spent more than $160 million on an aggressive advertising campaign in 2000; as a result, sales of Vioxx quadrupled to $1.5 billion.[2] Vioxx may have caused heart attacks or cardiac deaths in up to 139,000 Americans, based on Merck's own studies, before it was pulled from shelves in 2004.[3]
"Our plan attacks the outrageous and unacceptable increases in drug companies' marketing budget, which piles on the cost and passes it on to consumers in the form of skyrocketing prices," Sheltrown said. "Requiring drug companies to disclose how much they spend on their massive marketing campaigns will give our consumers important information that can help them make better decisions."