The Wrong Prescription
The D.C. Council should reject the Safe Rx Act

Monday, December 10, 2007

THE DISTRICT government faces a daunting list of health challenges. HIV-AIDS constitutes what a recent report issued by the city called a "modern epidemic." Chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease strike city residents at rates higher than the national average. The health department is without a director. Given these issues, it's perplexing that the D.C. Council is focusing its attention on a dubious crackdown against the pharmaceutical industry.

Legislation pending before the council would regulate the pharmaceutical marketing practice known as detailing. Under the measure, representatives of pharmaceutical manufacturers who market drugs to doctors would have to be licensed. Among other things, the District would establish criteria for qualifications and impose a code of conduct aimed at prohibiting detailers from knowingly providing false information. Of course, they'd have to pay a fee -- the amount yet to be determined -- to do business in the city.

The multifaceted proposal is the brainchild of council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), the formidable chairman of the council's health committee and a persistent foe of the pharmaceutical companies. Mr. Catania is frequently right in his criticism of an industry that too often places its desire for profits ahead of the needs of patients. But his remedy -- deceptively called the SafeRx Act of 2007 -- is an unnecessary overreach of government regulation. Some provisions of the measure duplicate safeguards already established by the federal government and the American Medical Association. Perhaps Mr. Catania is right that the Food and Drug Administration should be more vigilant, but he has made a less than convincing case that abuses are so rampant as to warrant this measure.

Then there are the concerns of the city's medical community -- hospitals, doctors and drugstores -- who see unintended consequences in a law that would be among the nation's first on detailing. The District already has some of the highest drug costs in the nation, and that's without imposing government licensing fees on the drug companies. The council should reject this well-intentioned but badly thought-out bill and focus on the more pressing health issues that demand attention.