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news.A report by the national consumer group Union Federale des Consummateurs - Que Choisir has revealed that during 2002-2006, the French health care system has wasted around E1 billion because of undue prescriptions of branded drugs in just five classes of medicines, according to PharmaTimes.
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According to the consumer group, the drugs – used in the treatment of gastroesophageal disorders, blood pressure and arthritis, plus anticoagulants and antiplatelet agents for use in prevention of cardiovascular attacks – account for 14% of prescriptions written by French doctors every year.
As per the French government estimates in 2002, 50% of French prescriptions for Sanofi-Aventis or Bristol-Myers Squibb’s antiplatelet drug Plavix (clopidogrel) were needless, costing the system around 350 million euros during 2002-06. French health service spending on antiplatelet and anticoagulant agents also increased by 88% during this period.
According to UFC- Que Choisir, doctors in France come under undue pressure from the company representatives as the representatives are permitted to visit doctors only and not pharmacists or drug distributors. In 2005, 22,702 sales representatives were operating in France, twice as many as in the UK and Germany and four times as many as in the Netherlands, according to Ministry of Labour’s General Inspectorate of Social Affairs.
The consumers group urged the government to enhance pharmacology training for its medical students, raise taxes on drug promotion and take steps to reduce the company representatives’s visits to doctors to curb the pressures on doctors.