Who is Attacking the Sunshine Act: Part 2

Enacted via the U.S. Affordable Care Act, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires that pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies in the U.S. report "transfers of value" (or payments) they distribute to physicians on an annual basis. These payments are published in a public database, enabling patients to look up their doctors and determine how much they had been paid via manufacturuers. The original intention was to track conflicts of interest in prescribing in the U.S. 

Prior to the implementation of the final reporting standards, a number of stakeholder groups submitted comments to the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services - the federal agency responsible for stewarding the data reporting program. Many industrial groups submitted comments requesting that the definitions of an "applicable manufacturer" be restricted, effectively disqualifying some organizations from being required to report. In this article, the Association for Medical Ethics responded to their calls for restricting definitions arguing that it was being proposed as a means of evading reporting.