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Exactly one year after a special audit committee concluded that the pharma company AbbVie violated the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices by spending almost Rs 2 crore to sponsor luxury vacations abroad for 30 doctors, no action has been taken. The ethics board of the National Medical Commission (NMC), that is supposed to take up the complaint against the doctors, is empty barring one part-time member.After the findings of the special audit committee constituted by the department of pharmaceuticals, on the basis of an anonymous complaint, an apex committee conducted hearings to give the company a chance to defend itself. After hearing the company, this committee also concluded that there was “no justifiable reason for 30 healthcare professionals to journey abroad to Monaco and Paris” to gain knowledge about simple procedures in medical aesthetics, such as administration of “Botox and Juvederm”. “Such medical interventions are widely recognized as a lucrative commercial service and evidence attached to the complaint links healthcare professionals directly to the sale, purchase, or administration of such aesthetic products of M/s AbbVie,” stated the apex committee.In its order dated December 23, 2024, the committee let off Abbvie with just a reprimand for unethical marketing practices while asking the NMC to take action against 30 offending healthcare professionals as per the ethics code for doctors. However, the department of pharmaceuticals had not sent the names of the accused doctors to the NMC till June this year and their names are yet to be made public.In response to an RTI query the NMC revealed on December 17 that the five-member ethics and medical registration board (EMRB), which would have to hear the complaint against the doctors and decide what action is to be taken, is empty barring a part-time member. According to the health ministry’s response in Parliament on March 18 this year, the posts of the EMRB president had been vacant since June 2022 (now three-and-a-half years), and that of two whole time members since September 2022 and September 2024. In its reply, the NMC stated that “the statutory posts in NMC are filled by the central government/ministry of health and family welfare”.
