Controversy over patient support programs has been reignited with criticism of arrangements between Pfizer Australia and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to pay pharmacists for signing up consumers to smoking cessation programs.
In an opinion piece on the health and science website The Conversation, Dr Ross MacKenzie, a lecturer in Health Studies at Macquarie University, criticised the inclusion of Pfizer’s smoking cessation treatment varenicline (Champix) in the scheme based on the drug’s controversial history and debate over the efficacy of pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation.
“Pfizer Australia’s arrangement with pharmacists to sign smokers up to the Champix support scheme is only the most recent example of the industry’s clear commercial interest in undermining smoker’s confidence in their ability to quit ‘cold turkey,” he...
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