The UKs' Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s new Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry has been criticised in the British Medical Journal for “lacking teeth”.
The article is available online.
The new Code does not come into force until January 2006 but it has already been attacked for being “fundamentally weak” by the editor of the Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin. Professor Andrew Herxheimer of the Cochrane Centre also stated that, “not much has changed”.
Despite this weakness Insider hopes that UK doctors are prepared to make complaints to the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority or the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency when they see Big Pharma upto dubious practices.
Better still, the UK government should consider "whistleblowing" legislation to encourage (and finacially reward) workers within Big Pharma to snitch on their employers.
Hat tip: Prescribing Advice for GPs
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