View from the Nation's Capital.
After several years of intensive debate and drafting, Congress has newly enacted legislation that will substantially change the traditional system by which drugs are distributed to physicians. While Congress acted with some specific and well-defined abuses before it, it had little empirical data that these changes would or could be effective to deal with the abuses. In the past, when Congress has enacted comprehensive legislation (changes in the Tax Code are a recent example), it has generally had to pass correcting legislation in the next session. It remains to be seen whether this Act will work without substantial corrections, particularly given the widespread disfavor it has met in the drug industry. Hopefully, it is the questionable drug practices that will be ended, rather than simply the convenient access physicians have long had both to established and newly approved drug products. An unfortunate but likely side effect of the Act is that data will be generated in the field if physicians can no longer easily receive free samples for distribution to patients without cost and for subsequent monitoring of drug safety and efficacy.
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D004345:Drug Industry; D007880:Legislation, Drug; D014481:United States