The pharmaceutical industry has developed a “hidden web of policy influence” over members of the U.K. parliament through payments that run the risk of creating of “institutional corruption,” according to a new analysis.
Specifically, researchers focused on All-Party Parliamentary Groups, which are informal clusters of lawmakers that focus on particular issues and seek to influence government through meetings and reports (read more here). However, APPGs do not receive government funding, so the findings raise questions about the extent to which these groups act independently.
The analysis found that 16 of 146 of health-related APPGs, or 11%, received payments from 35 drug makers worth nearly $1.7 million between 2012 and 2019. That amounted to 17% of the more than $10 million received by all health-related APPGs. And two APPGs devoted to health and cancer received more than half of the payments made by drug companies.
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