MCI sharpens ethics code for doctors

Asks practitioners to shun gifts from pharmaceutical industry

The Medical Council of India (MCI) on Friday initiated a move precisely aimed at discouraging them from falling into the industry’s lure.

The MCI came out with a modified code of ethics for doctors, who have often been suspected to be ignoring the ethics of the noble profession they practice by promoting the pharmaceutical industry’s interests.

The MCI has amended the Indian Medical Council (professional conduct, etiquette and ethics) Regulations, 2002.

The amendment, the first in seven years, makes the code of conduct for doctors and medical associations more explicit.

Modified code

The modified code of ethics, published on Friday, prohibits medical practitioners from accepting gifts, travel facilities, hospitality and monetary grants from the healthcare industry either in their name or in the names of their family members.
The code bars the doctors and their family members from accepting rail or air travel facilities, cruise tickets and paid vacations from the industry. They cannot accept any hospitality either.

Legitimate exception

A legitimate exception is, however, made. Research grants from the industry are allowed but with a condition that the source and amount of funding have to be disclosed right at the beginning.

Besides, the research has to be cleared by the competent authority and must have the approval of the institutional as well as state or national-level ethics committees.
While accepting research grants, doctors and medical institutions have also been advised to have a specific disclosure clause in the agreement so that they are at liberty to publish the research findings in the larger interest of the society.

The code also requires the doctors and their associations not to endorse drugs and healthcare products publicly. Studies on the efficacies of healthcare products have to be published in scientific journals or presented to scientific bodies.

It is a moot question if the medical practitioners adhere to the modified code. Recently, the pharmaceutical industry virtually gave a cold response to a proposal from the department of chemicals and fertilisers, asked it come up with a uniform code of pharmaceutical marketing that, among others, would bar pharma companies from offering freebies to doctors.

Some of the industry associations, in fact, made it known that they would not accept any voluntary ethical code. The Small and Medium Pharma Industries Confederation, for instance, rejected the department’s proposal and suggested that the government should evolve a code with legal teeth.