KARACHI, March 21: Medical practitioners, on Sunday, were urged not to allow pharmaceutical companies to finance their functions and other ventures. This observation was made by the vice-chancellor of Usman Institute of Technology, Dr Manzoor Ahmad, at a seminar on "Medical Ethics", organized by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association as part of its 18th biennial convention.

Dr Ahmad, who was guest of honour at the seminar, pointed out that political parties were not in power in the developed world. Only cartels were ruling the world, he added. Referring to the speeches made earlier by experts, he said that every religious precept - whether about doctors or patients or ethical problems - was a particular instance.

He advised doctors against treating those instructions as a major premise. He urged them to take the spirit of those instructions and analyze them in the light of modern research and new technologies. He added that this methodology should also be applied to jurisprudence, health care system and other fields.

Asif Misbah, chief executive officer of a leading pharmaceutical company, said that companies marketing and selling drugs employed benign and devious methods.

"For instance, the dissemination of sales literature and distribution of samples, writing pads, pens and paperweights are benign methods. But, support for government hospital wards, sponsorships of international and national conferences, personalized services and gifts, discounts to doctors and commissions for doctors prescribing certain drugs constitute devious methods," he explained.

He cautioned against being deceived by misleading nomenclature. "For example, support for a government ward sounds very noble, but the intention of pharmaceutical companies should also be looked at rather critically.

The only selection criterion that doctors should consider is the efficacy of a drug. If drugs of same efficacy are available, they should prescribe only those drugs which are cost-effective," he said.

Mr Misbah spelled out some Sharia criteria that medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies should bear in mind at all times. "First, the burden of services offered by pharmaceutical companies should not be allowed to be passed onto to patients through high prices.

Second, quality of medicines should not be compromised by using low-quality inputs which affect drug efficacy. Third, any such pharmaceutical company activity is not acceptable which leads doctors to prescribe drugs whose better alternatives are available," he said.

Speaking on "Medical ethics and our religious and cultural values", Khwaja Sadiq Hussain, former principal of King Edward College, enumerated the qualities of a good Muslim doctor.

He said, "A good Muslim doctor should be God-fearing, dignified, trustworthy, modest and free from falsehood and self- glorification. He should never take advantage of the poor and the ignorant," he said.

He said, "Contrary to Western practices, a good Muslim doctor is supposed to moralize. For instance, if a patient tells you that he smokes or that he drinks alcohol, it is mandatory for a doctor to advise him to quit these habits," he added.

Mr Hussain listed quite a few new issues - such as family planning, permissive abortion, surrogate motherhood, mercy killing, organ transplant, genetic bioengineering and cloning - which would be discussed at a session on "Contemporary medical issues and Islam" on Monday.

He said that good Muslim doctors should also abstain from giving false testimony at medico-legal cases. He quoted quite a few Quranic verses to prove his point.

Speaking about religious guidelines, Mr Hussain said that necessity should override prohibition. "It is a well-known Islamic precept that if somebody is dying of hunger, he can eat what has been declared Haram in the religion. We can derive the principle from this precept that necessity should override prohibition," he explained.

He said that there was a great deal of difference between Islamic ethics and secular ethics. "For instance, at the moment cloning is not allowed in the West. But, they may permit it in the future in accordance with public opinion. This is not the case with Islamic ethics, which remains constant and unchanged," he observed.

The chairman of Medicine Department at Ziauddin Medical University, Dr Ejaz Ahmed Vohra, said that teachers and educators should produce such graduates who are familiar with the needs of the communities they operate in, well-versed in Islamic values and ethics, good learners and interested in research.