WSJ, New York Times, AP: RxP says Pfizer, company disclosures no sub for national website

04/01/2010

Pfizer paid physicians $35 million in the last half of 2009, according to company disclosures reported in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Associated Press. Allan Coukell, director of the Pew Prescription Project, told the AP that individual company disclosures like Pfizers have so far lacked the user-friendliness of the anticipated database to be created by the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which passed last week as part of the health reform overhaul.

“All of them are welcome, but none of them is a replacement for a single national database,” Allan Coukell said of the company disclosures to the New York Times. Pfizer, as part of a court order, is the fourth company to make public disclosures of payments to physicians available, though each companies' format and level of disclosure is different.

Read the Wall Street Journal,  New York Times and Seattle Times articles, watch Coukell on the PBS Nightly Business Report, or learn more about the Sunshine Act.