Feds get even dumber
“The Sunshine Act, which was introduced into Congress at the beginning of the year, If implemented, would require drug and device manufacturers with annual revenues over $100m to disclose to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), anything of value given to physicians, such as payments, gifts, honoraria or travel.”
This is related to possible passage of a rule that doctors who participate in market research, and are compensated for it, will have this information disclosed.
Please understand this important nugget. We are not talking about doctors who endorse medications, taking pharmaceutical supplied junkets, or who are paid to speak on behalf of a medication. This is about physicians who offer feedback regarding products or devices that may be developed, or, existing medications or devices that are currently in the market and the manufacturers who want input.
This is another example of how the Feds do dumb things. In this case, it is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Perhaps Secretary Kathleen Sebelius ought worry about more important things like championing interstate insurance competition, finding ways to make medications more affordable to the growing jobless and homeless population in the USA, or launching a bold initiative for small businesses to become vendors for her 80,000 employee department, instead of the huge mega corporations who garner most HHS contracts.
