Managing influence on physicians
Following on recent stories about attempts to set financial thresholds and disclosure requirements in order to reduce pharma’s influence on health professionals, this story — New rules on conflicts proposed — at U. Wisconsin makes some interesting points. Banning physician gfits, dinners, etc. may be a good step, but,
the recommendations do not fully address drug company funding of continuing medical education, or CME. Observers say that continuing medical education has been used by the industry to market expensive brand-name drugs, in part by promoting non-approved uses for the drugs. “The one missing piece is CME,” Kassirer said. “That’s too bad.”
Further, even if there are stringent mechanisms in place about disclosure, they have to be enforced. Quoting Eric Campbell, the article notes that
It is one thing for a university to demand disclosure of payments, he said. It is another to actually check a disclosure against a doctor’s tax return.
Nonetheless, its interesting to look at the full extent to which UW is willing to go. These include prohibiting ghostwriting (where MDs are paid to sign off on scientific articles written by others) and all gift, and requiring reporting of participation at educational events, while and non-accredited events would be discouraged…
