A Symbiotic Relationship – The AMA And The Health Lobby

Wonk Room:

...the tobacco industry leaned on the AMA [American Medical Association] to substantiate its dubious health claims. Beginning in 1933, JAMA [the Journal of the AMA] published tobacco advertisements, stating that it had done so only “after careful consideration of the extent to which cigarettes were used by physicians in practice.” The tobacco industry became the AMA’s largest advertiser, and its implicit endorsement of tobacco products allowed companies like Camel to proclaim slogans such as, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.”
Of course, during this period of heavy of tobacco and industry influence, the AMA defeated the health care reform proposals of both President Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman using the specter of “creeping socialism” that would bring “debased standards of medical care.”
Currently, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the nation’s largest pharmaceutical lobbying group, is pursuing a multimillion dollar campaign against many aspects of health reform. A public insurance plan might pay less for branded drugs, or would opt for generics in many cases, so drug companies want to maintain the status quo. But if this is the concern, why is AMA stepping up to the plate for the drug lobby?
AMA derives at least a fifth of its budget from drug companies through an arrangement known as “licensure.” The program consists of AMA selling drug companies its “Masterfile” of doctor profiles, spanning everything from detailed biographic information to an individual doctor’s prescription-writing history. The program is extremely controversial since drug companies in turn use the information to aggressively market their products to doctors. Controversial drugs Vioxx and Avandia, which have subsequently been found to pose significant risks to patients, have been marketed to doctors, in some cases, using information obtained from the AMA.
After an uproar in 2007, the AMA, through a policy of self-regulation, claimed to have stopped selling doctor prescription-writing information. But that pledge must be viewed with skepticism given the AMA’s track record.
During a Senate investigation of abuses of the licensure practice in 1990, the Boston Globe reported that AMA and PhRMA lobbyists came to Capitol Hill to promise Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) that the program was not part of any effort to convince doctors to prescribe PhRMA drugs. This promise to self-regulate was never kept. In 2001 the New York Times reported that the AMA generated $20 million dollars a year from licensure sales to drug companies in a complex scheme to market drugs like Baycol to doctors. In 2006, that number climbed to $40 million, and in 2007 it was reported to be $45 million.