On Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee released its version of S. 2380, legislation to reorganize the state’s economic development apparatus.
Buried in the 100+ pages of legalese was this simple provision:
SECTION 105. Chapter 111N of the General Laws is hereby repealed.
The pharma industry hoped nobody would notice these 8 words, that nobody would make any noise about this obscure provision.
But we did, and we will.
Chapter 111N is the state’s historic drug and device marketing restrictions law, passed overwhelmingly in 2008 after a bitter struggle between consumers, doctors, hospitals and employer groups seeking lower health care costs, and the drug industry seeking to protect their sky-high profits on brand-name drugs. The law imposes reasonable restrictions and transparency on the inherent conflict of interest set up when drug companies pay off doctors to prescribe drugs. (Background info here, here, here, and here.
Now industry is pushing back, tacking on an unrelated provision onto a complex bill, a provision that never had a hearing or any public discussion during the last weeks of the session. This is a hail-mary pass by an industry that only looks out for its bottom line, without regard to ethics or patient needs.
The Boston Globe today called Chapter 111N “one of the smartest steps Massachusetts has taken to get health costs under control.” DPH bent over backwards in its regulatory process to accommodate industry’s pleas to avoid burdening legitimate interactions, while making sure the public interest came first. The first public reports under the law are due next week.
The House debate on S. 2380 is scheduled for next Wednesday. Call your Representative, and urge him or her to support the amendment to strip out section 105. This is not the time to undo a decision made just 2 years ago.
-Brian Rosman
