Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report (GCR) 2006 focuses on corruption and its relationship to health. Transparency International defines corruption as ‘the abuse of entrusted power for private gain’. This document states that corruption in the health sector deprives those most in need of essential medical care and helps spawn drug-resistant strains of deadly diseases, and occurs with frequency in part because of the value of medicine in healthcare.

The report's executive summary states that "health sphere corruption encompasses bribery of regulators and medical professionals, manipulation of information on drug trials, the diversion of medicines and supplies, corruption in procurement, and over billing of insurance companies. It is not limited to abuse by public officials, because society frequently entrusts private actors in health care with important public roles. When hospital administrators, insurers, physicians or pharmaceutical company executives dishonestly enrich themselves, they are not formally abusing a public office, but they are abusing entrusted power and stealing precious resources needed to improve health."


The book includes reports drawn from health care and public health professionals and health and public policy researchers worldwide on:

* the risks of corruption in different health care systems
* the scale of the problem: from high-level corruption in Costa Rica to counterfeit medicines in Nigeria
* health care fraud in the United States
* the costs of corruption in hospital administration and the problem of informal payments for health care
* the impact of corruption at various points of the pharmaceutical chain
* anti-corruption challenges posed by the fight against HIV/AIDS

It also includes:

* a foreword by Mary Robinson
* detailed assessments of the state of corruption in 45 countries
* recommendations for cleaning up the health sector
* examples of successes in preventing health-related bribery, fraud and corruption
* the latest corruption-related research, including studies on the links between corruption and other global
* issues such as pollution, gender and foreign investment
*lessons learned from anti-corruption campaigns around the world