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Gift disclosure bill dies in New York Senate

Pharma Compliance Alert, July 5, 2006

A New York state bill that would have required pharmaceutical companies to disclose their gifts to physicians has fizzled, likely due to lobbying from the drug industry.

The bill, which passed the state Assembly last month but did not get a vote in the Senate, would have required companies to report gifts worth more than $75 to the state, which would have made the information public. The Senate didn't act on the bill before the legislative session ended. Instead, it introduced an alternative version that would have increased the limit on gifts that would have to be disclosed to $250, reports The New York Times. It would also have kept the names of the doctors on the receiving end confidential.

Senator George D. Maziarz, the sponsor of the original Senate bill, said the new proposal gutted his own, but that he is confident that he can push an amended version of his bill through the Senate next year, reports The Times.

Groups that supported the bill, such as AARP and the New York Public Interest Research Group, are up in arms over the new proposal and the lack of action from the Senate. They say drug industry lobbying is the culprit behind the failure of the publicly supported measure. The bill passed the Assembly 127-8 before stalling in the Senate, reports The Journal News, a New York paper. Read more about the Assembly bill here.

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