1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Tag: bribes
New Tool Lets You See Who Is Being Bought Off By Big Pharma
A new search tool unveiled Friday increases public access to information about the connections between advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy and the pharmaceutical industry.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) discusses epidemiological studies, weighs the benefits and side effects reported in clinical trials, and makes recommendations to the CDC on the routine vaccination schedules for children and adults. The ACIP’s recommendations inform which shots are reimbursed by health plans. In a bid to enhance transparency around the process, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has enabled users to search which advisors reported potential conflicts of interest and recused themselves from casting a vote affecting a drugmaker they had ties to.
The new tool is consistent with pledges by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore trust in the nation’s health agencies lost during the pandemic through increased information.
“In alignment with HHS Secretary Kennedy’s commitment to radical transparency, CDC released a tool for Americans to easily access conflicts of interest for ACIP committee members,” a CDC spokesman said in an email. “Rather than conflicts of interest being buried within meeting minutes, this tool quickly provides the public with ACIP members’ conflicts of interest.”
The ACIP became a flashpoint for controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic, reenergizing concerns about payments advisors receive from the pharmaceutical industry.
Share this:
Why I Have Trust Issues With Doctors – 57% of US docs received payments totaling over $12 billion from Big Pharma in less than a decade
A report has found that nearly six in 10 doctors in the United States received payments from Big Pharma firms between 2013 and 2022.
This is according to a study done by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, which found that around 57 percent of doctors collectively received approximately $12.1 billion from medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical drug makers between 2013 and 2022.
“Despite evidence that financial conflicts of interest may influence physician prescribing and may damage patients’ trust in medical professionals, such payments remain pervasive,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers used data from the platform Open Payments – a publicly accessible national database where drug and medical device companies disclose payments and gifts made to physicians – for their study.
They found that from August 2013 to August 2022, American drug and device manufacturers made more than 85 million individual payments to 826,313 of the more than 1.4 million eligible doctors in the United States.
The payments that the researchers included in their study were both in cash and non-cash equivalents. Most went to consulting services and non-consulting fees, such as payments for serving as a speaker.
Delusions of Adequacy 