Summary of the Globe and Mail article.
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- Ten large Canadian drug companies paid $48 million to doctors and health-care-organizations in 2016
- The payment disclosure was voluntary and was an aggregate number; critics say this is meaningless and not transparent
- Only 10 of the 45 members of a drug company consortium took part in the voluntary effort
- In the United States, Australia and some European countries patients can search for doctors’ names on a public database to see if they have taken money from the drug industry
- In the United States, drug companies are required, by law, to disclose any payment over $10 to doctors and health-care organizations
- Doctors are paid for consulting, delivering speeches, sitting on advisory boards and travelling to international medical conferences
- The federal health minister said that disclosure of payments to doctors should be up to the provinces