The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine has joined the call to urge medical professors and other health-care professionals to reject free meals, travel, and consulting fees from pharmaceutical companies, the Associated Press reports.

The institute, which represents the government’s top medical advisers, warned in a 353-page report that such gifts could influence how doctors practice medicine. Bernard Lo, who is chairman of the committee that wrote the report, said free lunches and paid lectures “erode public trust while providing no meaningful benefits to patients or society.”

The document calls on medical schools, hospitals, and physicians’ groups to publicly report money they receive from drug companies, to not accept free gifts or meals from the industry, and to ban physicians who have financial conflicts of interest from testing new therapies on people.

The report from the prestigious institute could influence state and federal lawmakers who have been considering ways to cut down on conflicts of interest that critics believe threaten patients and drive up the cost of medicine.

A growing number of medical schools already require professors to disclose potential conflicts, but some are still being rocked by troubling revelations about undisclosed payments from the medical industry. —Katherine Mangan