Statement of Laura Etherton, OSPIRG advocate, on passage of HB 2376 by the House Health Care Committee of the Oregon Legislature.
Portland, OR, March 30, 2009 -- OSPIRG applauds the House Health Care Committee for passing Rep. Tomei's HB 2376, the bill designed to shine a spotlight on the practice of drug companies giving gifts, fees, travel, compensation and other items as part of their marketing efforts to doctors and other prescribers.
It is more important now than it has ever been for us to get control of skyrocketing health care costs. Families and businesses across the state are getting squeezed by rising health care premiums and out of pocket costs.
Prescription drugs are one of the key drivers of the rising cost of health care. While some advances in prescription medicine are well worth the cost, too much of the money Oregonians spend on drugs is excessive and wasteful. More and more of the proceeds from drug sales are devoted, not to finding new cures and treatments, but to aggressive and often inaccurate advertising and marketing. This marketing drives prescribing toward the newest and most expensive, but not always most effective, prescription drugs.
Drug marketing directly to purchasers or prescribers entails providing free meals to providers and their staff, paying physicians to attend conferences or other events, paying speaking fees to physicians, and so on. This spending is significant, and it has the desired effect. According to a study by Yale School of Management's Professor Dick Wittink, every dollar pharmaceutical companies spend on drug marketing to physicians earns the company $11.60 in additional sales.
It is in the drug companies' interests to devote resources to selling their most expensive products, and to do so in the most effective way possible. But because of the important role safe, effective, affordable prescription drugs play in the health of Oregon's population, it is in the public interest to require, at the very least, disclosure of this practice.
Passage out of Committee is good news for health care consumers. OSPIRG urges the full Oregon Legislature to pass this bill in the 2009 session.
