Disability Law

In the Wall Street Journal (3/12) Health Blog, Jacob Goldstein wrote, "Massachusetts has adopted a strict set of rules that bans most gifts" from drug companies to physicians "and requires companies to report some payments." Under the rules, companies are required to report "payments of more than $50 for certain consulting and speaking gigs." And, although "companies including Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Medtronic have all said they will start reporting payments to docs...that reporting typically starts at a floor higher than $50."

The rules also require companies to "disclose payments to doctors and hospitals for research designed to promote a particular product, sometimes called 'seeding trials,'" but "funding for research aimed at answering a scientific question will still not have to be disclosed," the Boston Globe (3/12, Kowalczyk) added. Meanwhile, the state Department of Public Health "eliminated a provision allowing companies to provide financial assistance for medical residents and other trainees to attend conferences and education courses." These regulations "are intended to implement a law passed last summer to restrict interactions between physicians and drug and device companies." Furthermore, lawmakers claim the rules will "control costs by reining in unnecessary prescribing of expensive drugs and to make doctors' potential conflicts of interest transparent to the public."

From the American Association for Justice news release.