In “Drug Pushers in Academia,” a provocative blog post just out in Mother Jones, the magazine describes how pharmaceutical companies give grants to medical schools to support the medical-education courses that doctors need to maintain their licenses. It noted that testimony at a conference held at Georgetown University indicated that companies supported courses that gave favorable reviews to their drugs, potentially slanting physicians’ “education.”
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3 Responses to Pushing Drug Bias in Medical School
davi2665 - June 30, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Someone needs to get their information straight. Most medical schools and major hospital systems do not allow pharmaceutical company sponsored courses to occur on their campuses, and most certainly do not allow them to influence the content of what is presented. The new conflict of interest rules and regulations are so tough, that if we applied them to politicians, there would not be a single politician left because of egregious violations. Medically-sponsored continuing “educational” courses do indeed take place at plush resorts, etc., where “thought leaders” are paid as shills for the sponsoring pharmaceutical company. However, they are rarely held on medical school/hospital campuses anymore, and physicians are expected to declare their conflicts of interest from them. Individuals violating their conflict of interest requirements should be fired for cause, period. I do not approve of or condone the arm twisting influences of big pharma, but the influence over course content in any medical school sponsored education courses is rapidly changing, and will soon be a thing of the past.
barbarapiper - July 2, 2010 at 9:34 am
The statement above, “In “Drug Pushers in Academia,” a provocative blog post just out in Mother Jones, the magazine describes how pharmaceutical companies give grants to medical schools to support the medical-education courses that doctors need to maintain their licenses,” is false, and represents a misunderstanding of the nature of continuing medicine education. The Mother Jones article does NOT describe grants to medical schools — parmaceuticals make grants to “institutions” according to the MJ article. These may include hospitals, companies that publish medical journals, professional associations, etc. Perhaps the author of the Chronicle blurb does not realize that CME courses are not medical school courses, but are typically several hours of training at conferences, self-administered quizzes in professional journals, etc.
yorklibrary - July 4, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Recent Experience :I attended a medical conference co-sponsored by Harvard University, but at a different venue in NYC. I know to keep my filter operating when drug companies are also sponsors (as they were). Attended a mini-series of lectures on fibromyalgia which I found very helpful – seemed to help sort out the conflicting theories regarding mechanism and treatment. I left feeling like I had a new understanding of how to think about this elusive disease. Only to realize later that in fact there is still no concensus about it and that only one side of the multifaceted conversation had been presented all day – no surprise the one that supports the use of the newest fibromyalgia drug. Multiple presenters from multiple clinical settings, but all with one way of thinking about the problem.It’s that sort of much more subtle mind-massage that is growing more common and more insidious by the day.