Vermont Legislature Cracks Down on Drug-Company Gifts

The Vermont Legislature has approved a law requiring drug and medical-device makers to publicly disclose detailed information about money and other gifts they give to physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other health-care providers, The New York Times reported.

The law, which is scheduled to take effect July 1, is one of the toughest measures taken by a state to restrict gifts that might influence a physician’s prescribing or treatment decisions. It would allow Vermonters to learn, for instance, how much their physicians had been paid by the companies that manufacture brand-name drugs they are prescribing. Someone scheduled for heart surgery could find out whether his surgeon had received money from manufacturers of pacemakers.

The measure would also ban industry-sponsored meals and nearly all other gifts to health-care providers.

The law was approved at a time when state and federal officials are scrutinizing potential conflicts of interest and debating how to avoid them. A bill sponsored by Sen. Charles E. Grassley, a Republican of Iowa, and Sen. Herb Kohl, a Democrat of Wisconsin, would require that drug companies’ gifts to doctors be disclosed.

A lawyer for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said Vermont’s law isn’t needed, because the trade association approved a voluntary code in January restricting free meals and banning noneducational gifts to doctors.

“We think this is unnecessary, and it is not going to improve patient care,” said the lawyer, Marjorie E. Powell. “It makes it onerous not only for the company but also for the physician in Vermont, because this is going to be on a Web site.”

The bill had the support, however, of the Vermont Medical Society, which represents 65 percent of Vermont’s physicians. —Katherine Mangan