Canadian drug makers assailed for lack of transparency over payments

Ten of Canada’s largest pharmaceutical companies, reports Toronto’s Globe and Mail, have revealed that together they spent at least $48.3-million on payments to physicians and health-care organizations last year, a voluntary disclosure that critics of Big Pharma say falls well short of genuine transparency.  The figures provided a peek into how drug makers compensate Canada’s physicians for consulting, delivering speeches, sitting on advisory boards and traveling to international medical conferences. But the companies did not name any of the doctors, nor did they reveal the total number of physicians they paid or the amounts they provided to doctors for running clinical trials.