Raising the bar for disclosure of industry payments to doctors

After a seven year delay, in 2022drug companies operating in New Zealand made their first disclosures of financial relationships with individual health professionals. The information included payments for speaking engagements, consultancies, advisory board memberships, honorariums, travel costs, attendance at conferences, and other sponsored events.1 This welcome development, sponsored by the industry trade association Medicines New Zealand, was intended to promote “transparency” and “public understanding.”2 However, some members of Medicines New Zealand did not participate in the scheme, and several payment types were omitted from disclosure, notably food and drink provided by companies during sponsored events and sales visits.

While health professionals tend to favour transparency in principle, reporting standards for industry payments vary widely across countries. We compare New Zealand’s disclosure policy with that of other countries and consider what is necessary to effectively tackle the potential harms caused by doctors’ financial conflicts of interest.