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Transparency regarding conflicts of interest:
who benefits from the delay?

"Experts" speaking about drugs in a public gathering or in the media should divulge any links with the pharmaceutical companies concerned. This French measure dating back to 2002 is not scheduled to be implemented until 2007, or even 2008!

The French law of 4 March 2002 on patients' rights and the quality of the healthcare system requires members of the medical professions who have links with pharmaceutical or biomedical companies to declare these to the audience when they speak at a public event or express their views on these companies' products in the media (article L. 4113-13 of the Public Health law). Yet more than three and a half years on, the decree specifying how the law is to be enforced has not yet been published. Furthermore, according to the Health Department, publication of this decree is not planned before the end of 2007, or even the beginning of 2008. And so we must wait 5 or 6 years before the experts with links to pharmaceutical companies are forced to inform the public of their ties. Such a long delay is advantageous to those who find transparency irksome, but not to patients or to the general public.

©Prescrire February 2006

Source: "Conflits d'intérêts des leaders d'opinion : pas de transparence (suite)" Rev Prescrire 2006 ; 26 (269) : 139.

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