The Massachusetts Senate has passed an amendment to the state budget that would require pharmaceutical company sales representatives to be licensed and would ban them from providing entertainment, gifts, payments or travel to doctors, health care facilities or public officials, the Boston Globe reports. The amendment, sponsored by state Sen. Mark Montigny (D), calls for pharmaceutical representatives to complete training prior to receiving their state licenses and would require them to participate in continuing education. If the proposal is approved, licensing fees would be shared between the state attorney general's office, which would use the funds to prosecute Medicaid fraud, and the Board of Registration in Pharmacy, which would use the funds to lower medical error rates. Montigny said drug company representatives receive less scrutiny than many other professionals who have less potential impact on a person's health. He added, "I'm not going away on this issue. We need to ban all manipulation of drug-prescribing practices." Ken Johnson, senior vice president for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the proposal "would impose an additional burden on the sharing of new information with physicians." He added, "The amendment also seeks to impose criminal penalties on what should be viewed as the important sharing of information between pharmaceutical companies and physicians regarding the risks and benefits of medicine." If the amendment is approved, Massachusetts would become the first state in the nation to mandate the licensing of drug company sales representatives, according to the Globe. The proposal also has been introduced as a separate bill in the Senate, in case the measure fails during the budget approval process. The budget amendment will require approval from the state House of Representatives after a House-Senate conference committee crafts a compromise budget plan (Krasner, Boston Globe, 6/1).

WBUR's "Here and Now" on Thursday featured a discussion on the amendment with Joe Gerstein, the former administrator of Tufts Health Plan (Young, "Here and Now," WBUR, 6/1). The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.