Emanuel Announces Efforts to Combat Opioid Abuse Including Registering Pharmacetical Sales Reps

In early October, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a “series of efforts to combat heroin and opioid addiction throughout Chicago.” According to a press release on the City of Chicago’s website, “these proposed efforts would increase the City’s annual investment in addiction treatment by 50 percent…and create improved regulation of pharmaceutical representatives.” Chicago seems to place much of the blame on pharmaceutical representatives marketing to medical professionals. As such, Mayor Emanuel proposes to “establish a pharmaceutical representative license above the current Limited Business Licensing required for these individuals in Chicago.” Chicago seems to be following in the footsteps of Washington, DC, noting that “pharmaceutical representatives will be required to receive additional training and education and provide the city with information on opioid sales and marketing.” Through this extra licensing, the city would enable medical professionals to report complaints against pharmaceutical representatives for deceptive and/or unethical behavior and monitor, audit, and adjudicate such complaints. Part of the additional training would focus on prescription abuse, ethics, and marketing practices from programs certified by the city. Sometime this month, the city expects to introduce an ordinance that would require the extra licensing. The city is also considering requiring pharmaceutical representatives to track which doctors they contact, and ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs