IT is inevitable and understandable that doctors will have close links to the pharmaceutical industry.
GPs and consultants rightly attend conferences to learn about new medicines, co-operate with drugs firms on research, and maintain a dialogue which, in most cases, serves the public.
However, doctors receiving money from Big Pharma is an issue that comes with a major health warning.
According to the industry's trade body, nearly £40 million was paid by pharmaceutical firms to doctors last year in consultancy and fees for attending meetings.
This means that some clinicians have multiple paymasters: the NHS, plus whichever drugs company has hired them.
The existence of NHS guidance from 2003 on such payments - which requires health boards to establish registers of interest - confirms the issue is of public interest, and needs oversight and transparency.
However, the fact that around 50% of NHS boards have failed to comply with the guidance for GPs is deeply concerning, as the public is in the dark about hundreds of doctors who may have financial links to the industry.
In a welcome move, the Scottish Government has ordered an investigation into this systemic failure, but stronger action should be taken.
Dr Peter Gordon, a consultant in the Forth Valley health board, has lodged a petition calling for legislation to require all healthcare workers to declare industry payments on a central register.
Simply hoping that NHS boards enforce existing guidance is a strategy that has failed for more than 10 years. A new law would be a better way of focusing minds on this important issue.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article