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Senate Bill 2650 has been renamed SB2660.
After re-reading the bill and discussions with friends on the ground in Massachusetts we discovered that S2660 chapter 268c. not only outlaws CME payments, honorarium, consulting and travel, but also requires reporting on all other payments or benefits given to healthcare providers by third parties, this includes research, scientific discovery, stock payments, investigator expenses,….. and does not allow companies to keep any “trade secrets” in the selection of experts. This is not just for companies based in Massachusetts, but all companies all across America who utilize medical experts from the Boston Area.
The Bill States:
(a)(1) By July first of each year, every pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturing
company shall disclose to the department of public health the value, nature, purpose, and recipient of any fee, payment, subsidy, or other economic benefit not prohibited in Section 2, which is provided by the company, directly or through its agents, to any physician, hospital, nursing home, pharmacist, health benefit plan administrator, health care practitioner or any other person in this state authorized to prescribe, dispense, or purchase prescription drugs or medical devices in this state. For each expenditure, the company must also identify the recipient and the recipient’s address, credentials, institutional affiliation, and state board or DEA numbers.
(b)(1) Information submitted to the department of public health pursuant to this section shall be a public record except to the extent that it includes information that is protected by state or federal law as a trade secret.
(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the identity of health care practitioners and other recipients of gifts, payments and materials required to be reported in this chapter shall not constitute confidential information or trade secrets protected under this section.
This section alone would shut down Biotech in the State of Massachusetts, as one violation of remembering that you bought coffee for a doctors during an investigators meeting and you break the law, also all your investigators would be listed in a database for potential shaming and lawsuits… I see no upside on this legislation.
This is a license for anti industry advocates to file violations for everything we do.
Your not welcome here
Back on the education provisions under the proposed law, we would have to kick out Massachusetts doctors who attend all medical conventions that receive funds from exhibits or have supporters for the education because some nut will come around and note (Oh doctor s___ was at the meeting, the meeting received support from companies and had __ exhibitors) we can fine all the companies who exhibited $5,000 for each doctor who attended from the state of Massachusetts, and all the doctors for each company that exhibited. If just ten doctors came to the meeting from Massachusetts and ten companies had exhibits or support, we are looking at ($1,000,000) in potential fines as each company would be fined for each doctor that participated and each doctor would be fined for each company that supported the event.
Just for Fun
Guess who was exempt from all these restrictions – Journals – -my guess is that the editors of JAMA and NEJM (I guess you don’t want the Massachusetts medical society to be against the bill), have cut a deal get rid of everyone from the sponsorship system except them, the sames ones calling for a complete end to commerical support, how nice of them to do that, no double standard here only purity and money….
The bill states:
Nothing in the section shall: Prohibit the provision, distribution, dissemination, or receipt of peer reviewed academic, scientific or clinical information. Nothing in this section shall prohibit the purchase of advertising in peer reviewed academic, scientific or clinical journals.