Laws for morons.

A new law says that if a pharmaceutical company pays for a doctor to attend a conference then both the company and the doctor will have to pay tax on the money spent. Funny, there is no tax on a politician taking his daughter, grand children, son in law and the sister of the son in law to a foreign junket on a special plane all paid for by the taxpayer. Also since there is no customs check on said politician the spawn can smuggle in any amount of contraband. Sadly now even AIIMS has been bullied into cancelling all travel grants for faculty. " This is being done following recent directions from the Central government. So all grants for international visits to any conference is being refused by the administration," said an official. TOI, 9 August. What the morons do not realise is that medicine is constantly changing. The drugs we use today were not there when we trained in the 70s. Of course, you read about them in journals but doubts still remain. All doctors have nightmares about drugs such as thalidomide. At a conference you have access to learned professors who have actually used a new drug and can ask specific questions to clarify your doubts and form an opinion as to which patient would benefit from the new treatment. Faculty need to meet other researchers to collaborate on further work. This maybe a mindless knee-jerk reaction to a TV program by a Bollywood actor who compared prices of proprietary medicines with their generic variants and showed that there is a huge cost difference. Naturally. The charge is that doctors are intentionally prescribing expensive medicines in exchange of freebies. The actor might have meant well but he is totally wrong. The big multinationals may spend on a well known professor but generally limit their gifts to ball point pens or writing pads. That is because their products are proven and well known. It is the shady companies whose products are of dubious quality that gift cars and TVs. There are about 2000 pharma companies in India without any control on what they make or the standards of their products. Most of them make the same range of antibiotics, pain killers and cough suppressants. To increase sales and product recognition they give expensive gifts to doctors with large practices. They also give enormous margins to chemists. If you write a generic it will be up to the chemist to give whatever he likes to the patient and naturally he will choose the one where his profit will be the highest. That means the doctor loses control of the patient to the chemist and if the junk medicine does not work the doctor loses his reputation. It is the government's duty to limit numbers of companies and keep a strict eye on standards. When criminals form the government they will react only as they know how - with knuckle dusters and knee capping. Meanwhile the Chief Minister of bankrupt Punjab, members of his cabinet and senior civil servants are off the US to attend the wedding of the niece of a MLA at a ranch in Wisconsin. A few Buds at lunch and Bourbon at dinner. Standard medicines. Cheers.