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Several U.S. states and the District of Columbia have mandated disclosure of payments to physicians by pharmaceutical companies. This study’s investigators performed a cross-sectional analysis of publicly available disclosure data in Vermont and Minnesota. They assessed not only the number, dollar value, and types of payments to healthcare providers (including physicians, organizations, and nonphysicians), but also the accessibility and quality of the data collected.
Obtaining access to data was very difficult in both states. In Vermont, records for 61% of payments made from mid-2002 to mid-2004 were not publicly available because they were designated as trade secrets, and 75% of publicly disclosed payment records lacked information necessar…