Thirty doctors who accepted foreign travel and hospitality worth Rs 1.9 crore from pharma company AbbVie in Feb-March 2024 have faced no action from NMC because the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) has refused to make their names public and is yet to forward the names to the commission.
The Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) bars pharma firms from offering travel or hospitality to healthcare professionals. Though the committee constituted by DoP found the foreign trips for doctors to be a violation of the law in Dec 2024, the names of the doctors had not been sent to NMC till May 8 this year, a response to an RTI application has revealed.
Responding six months after receiving another RTI application seeking the names, the pharma department claimed the requested information “involves disclosure of names or personal information and also is not of public interest” and is accordingly not provided under section 8(1)(j) of RTI Act.
In May 2024, the department had received a complaint that AbbVie sponsored a pleasure trip disguised as medical conferences to Monaco and Paris, with evidence including flight tickets and hotel bookings.
DoP constituted a special audit committee to audit AbbVie and forwarded the complaint to the Ethics Committee for Pharma Marketing Practices of pharma association, Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI).
Though OPPI’s committee found no irregularities in AbbVie’s sponsorship, the special audit exposed “explicit contravention” of UCPMP.
DoP’s apex committee examined the audit and concluded AbbVie had violated UCPMP. However, in its Dec 23, 2024 order, it let off AbbVie with just a “reprimand”.
However, in response to an RTI query to NMC in May this year, the panel informed the applicant “the list of 30 doctors is yet to be received by this commission”. Ophthalmologist Dr KV Babu, who filed the applications, said, “DoP is shielding the doctors by refusing to disclose names and failing to follow up on its own committee’s recommendation.”
“The only punishment so far is reprimanding the pharma company in a case where the department’s own special audit and apex committee found clear-cut violations. Yet, the department is shielding the guilty doctors by refusing to reveal the names and claiming that there is no public interest in making the names public. And worse, they haven’t even bothered to implement the apex committee’s recommendation that the doctors’ names be forwarded to the NMC to take action,” said Dr KV Babu, an ophthalmologist and RTI activist who filed the RTI applications with the NMC and the DoP.
