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Thursday, June  13, 2002. Posted: 09:26:03 (AEDT)

Calls for pharmaceutical benefits decisions to be more public

The head of the group which decides which drugs are offered at Government-subsidised prices says its decisions should be more accountable to the public.

Meetings of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee are confidential but its chairman, Lloyd Samson says there is more transparency required.

Professor Samson is proposing the committee publicly release a report after all decisions, detailing the advantages and disadvantages of the drug in question and the what the decision making process was.

But Professor Samson says drug companies may resist any moves to hand over confidential information about their products.

"In the ideal world there's no reason why the minutes of the meetings couldn't be made available, but within that there are such issues as commercial in confidence and other matters which need to be negotiated with the sponsors, which are the companies of course which put in their applications," he said.

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