US intends to publish drug company payments to doctors from October despite calls for delay

Despite calls for postponement from scores of doctors’ groups, the Obama administration intends to stick to its 30 September deadline for making public a database detailing payments and gifts from the drug industry to US physicians, a spokesperson for the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said on 15 September.

The American Medical Association and more than 100 other state medical societies and specialty groups have called on the CMS to delay the release of the information for six months, until 31 March, so that doctors could have more time to correct any inaccuracies in the database.

In a statement the association’s president, Robert Wah, said that the professional groups supported the effort …