Pacifiers instead of medicines

Placebo list
Doctors demand to put a barrier to ineffective drugs in RussiaIrina Alexandrova, Gazeta

The Formulary Committee of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, which unites about 50 leading medical experts of the country, criticized the Ministry of Health and Social Development. Doctors accuse officials of purchasing ineffective drugs and claim that the majority of the population is not fully provided with medicines.

The chairman of the committee, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Andrey Vorobyov said that the Ministry, at its discretion, adds to the list of vital and necessary medicines (in accordance with it, public procurement of medicines in the regions is conducted) drugs whose effectiveness has not been proven. "Officials are doing this against the opinion of experts. In a crisis, this is a crime, such drugs should be removed from the list through a transparent and transparent procedure," he said. Among the "pacifiers" the scientist named paracetamol, cerebralisin, nootropil.

At the same time, Vorobyov found it difficult to estimate the share of such drugs in the current list (previously, experts indicated their number in the range of 6-20%).

The director of the Russian branch of the Cochrane Cooperation (an international organization that studies "medical interventions" of any kind), Professor Vasily Vlasov, considers it necessary to make the provision of medicines to patients in polyclinics free of charge – within a limited list (several dozen names) of the most necessary drugs. In his opinion, resources for this can be found by optimizing costs – for example, by reducing redundant hospitals. "Even in Kyrgyzstan, where there are significantly fewer resources than in Russia, they were able to do this," he stressed.

Experts expressed the general opinion that the system of drug provision in the country needs to be radically reformed, since today the principle of justice is violated when allocating public funds for certain groups of the population. "The average cost of "ordinary simple therapy" today translates into 6-7 thousand rubles for a patient, which is not available to an ordinary pensioner," said Professor Pavel Vorobyov, president of the Society for Pharmacoeconomical Research. – The price of medicines should be "reference", that is, established by agreement with the state, and the same for patients in all regions."

Doctors also reproached Roszdravnadzor for delaying the procedure for registering new vital drugs, the lack of comparative clinical studies of analogues offered to patients instead of more expensive originals.

"The positivity of the crisis may consist in the fact that it will force officials to build a more effective scheme for providing medicines," said Kirill Danishevsky, president of the Society of Evidence–based Medicine Specialists, "and give an impetus to sweep garbage in beautiful packages from the pharmacological market."

In turn, the deputy head of Roszdravnadzor, Elena Telnova, said that a number of amendments are being prepared that will be made to the concept of drug provision discussed in the government and the State Duma until 2020. Nevertheless, Telnova refused to name specific changes in the document, noting only that "for those who receive medicines from the state, there will be no changes for the worse."

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru13.02.2009