Doctors’ group files legal charges against nine French doctors
Jeanne Lenzer - BMJ 2009;338:b2347
Voir l'éditorial
[www.formindep.org]
A doctors’ organisation has filed legal charges against nine French
"key opinion leaders" for allegedly failing to disclose their ties to
drug manufacturers. The nine doctors are considered top authorities on
a range of subjects, from menopause and diabetes care to Alzheimer’s
disease.
The doctors’ group that filed the charges, Formindep (Formation
Independante), is a non-profit organisation based in Roubaix, France,
that promotes independent medical information. They filed the charges
with the French professional authority, Ordre National des Médecins (a
body to which all doctors have to belong), after they reviewed
statements made by 150 doctors in 30 professional and lay media
outlets during a one month period in the spring of 2008 and found that
"not a single health professional declared any conflicts of interest."
In a 27 April statement, the group said, "These doctors’ medical
expertise and ability to speak with confidence to the media make them
the perfect vehicle for laundering pharmaceutical advertising into
scientific information." They cited a recent report by a French
government agency, IGAS (General Inspectorate for Social Affairs),
saying that it showed "some hospital doctors could earn up to {euro}90
000 from the industry for a conference or {euro}600 000 in
‘consultancy’ fees."
The largest French consumer protection organisation, UFC-Que Choisir,
joined Formindep in filing the charges against the nine doctors. The
two groups say that the doctors violated a section of France’s public
health code, passed in March 2007, which requires health professionals
when making public statements to declare ties to the manufacturers or
marketers of a relevant product.
Philippe Foucras, a generalist and president of Formindep, told the
BMJ that the civil charges will result in a tribunal in front of the
Ordre Régional des Médecins. Punitive action, he said, will likely be
limited to public shaming, but it is within the scope of the tribunal
to revoke the doctors’ medical licences. Three of the nine doctors so
far have agreed to a conciliation discussion that could allow them to
avoid trial.
The real goal, said Dr Foucras, is to "prevent this from happening again."
UFC-Que Choisir, in a statement on 27 April, said that it hoped to
"slash drug company spending on promotion through publicly funded
trained professionals who provide drug information in doctors’
offices."
One of nine doctors charged, Florence Pasquier, professor of neurology
at University Hospital in Lille, France, chaired the Alzheimer’s
disease working group of the Haute Autorité de Santé, the French
national health authority, which issued guidelines that recommend the
use of specific drugs for Alzheimer’s. The health authority’s
guidelines say that chairmanship of its working groups should "if
possible . . . not be entrusted to any person with a major conflict of
interest." Dr Pasquier acknowledged financial ties to a number of
manufacturers of drugs used to treat Alzheimer’s disease and says she
disclosed those ties to the health authority and that they were
published on the organisation’s website. In March, Formindep asked the
health authority to withdraw the guidelines.
In March 2008 Dr Pasquier gave a talk at a medical congress in Paris
but did not disclose her ties to industry. She told the BMJ that the
sponsor of the congress did not ask any of the five speakers to
disclose their ties, and "no one did it spontaneously." News of the
new law, said Dr Pasquier, "was not widely spread." Now, however, she
says, "I am very vigilant."
Voir l'éditorial
[www.formindep.org]
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