To achieve some balance, Dr Tildesley (BCMJ 2005;47[7]:362-363) [2] should have pointed out to readers that the BC Pharmacare program, whether we like Fair Pharmacare or not, provides the most generous overall level of benefits of any province at this time and BC generally has the lowest overall level of pharmaceutical costs per patient. There will always be some products that are not covered as fully or as readily as their proponents would like, but let us not gut the process that has served the province well overall.
By the way, in the interest of transparency, how about a statement from BCMJ contributors as to the nature and dollar value of their support from specific drug manufacturers for themselves and the programs they are or have been associated with in the past 5 years?
—David Blair, MD
Victoria
The BCMJ has an established system of identifying competing interests for its scientific articles, but not for letters or other opinion pieces (such as Dr Tildesley’s article in the September issue). We agree with Dr Blair that in certain instances it may be appropriate to obtain competing interest statements from contributors of opinion pieces, and will do so when we determine that it would be of benefit to readers. However, we do not agree that dollar values are appropriate, and will not request such information from contributors.
—ED