The American Psychiatric Association said yesterday that it would no longer allow education seminars and meals sponsored by pharmaceutical companies at its annual meeting. The move was made to reduce the potential for financial conflicts of interest, Reuters reported.

“There is a perception that accepting meals provided by pharmaceutical companies may have a subtle influence on doctors’ prescribing habits,” said James Scully, the association’s medical director, in a written statement. The group also banned industry-sponsored education seminars for the same reason.

Pressure has been mounting from Congress and watchdog groups to reveal those ties, as evidence has emerged from Emory, Stanford, and Harvard Universities, among other institutions, that psychiatrists conducting drug trials had received fees, in various forms, from the manufacturers of those drugs. While there has been no evidence that the fees or ties caused researchers to alter their results to make the drugs look better, the potential for such problems has raised alarms. —Josh Fischman