Click to play videoNew Delhi: Pharma associations across the country are coming up with a new and uniform set of self-regulatory guidelines to stop freebies for doctors.
Under renewed pressure from the government, pharma associations have promised to tighten the noose on companies which pay kickbacks to doctors for selling their products.
But the consumer activists in the country are calling it an eyewash.
"Whenever the pharma companies feel that the government is doing something to put them into an ethical framework, they come with a code themselves. So the government then feels that they are doing something and they wait and watch," said Pushpa Girimaji of Consumer Voice.
The Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) and the IDMA say they have drafted a new uniform code of conduct.
The code bans both non-medical and personal gifts, payments in cash, and all-expense paid overseas junkets for doctors and their families.
But the code allows pharma companies to sponsor doctors to attend international seminars and conferences
But experts feel that the code still lacks what was lacking in all the previous regulations and is not legally binding on companies.
The only penal action proposed on erring companies is that their names and the nature of complaint will be put up on the associations' websites.
Moreover, consumers say they will remain as helpless as they are now.
"The pharma companies pressurise the doctors and the doctors in turn sell expensive medicines to patients," said Consumer Voice.
Since self regulation is not working, consumers are demanding that the government should pass stringent laws.
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