The Tenuous Grip Of Big Pharma

Jan 4th, 2012

The cozy and ethically dubious relationships between pharmaceutical concerns and professionals acting as their agents is under pressure. ProPublica reports:

"Some of the nation's top medical schools cracked down on professors who give paid promotional talks for drugmakers last year, and the firms themselves cut back on such spending in the wake of mounting scrutiny.

Last year began with the University of Colorado Denver and its affiliated teaching hospitals launching an overhaul of conflict-of-interest policies after ProPublica found that more than a dozen of its faculty members had given paid promotional talks.

"We're going to just have to say we're not going to be involved with these speakers bureaus because they're primarily marketing," Dr. Richard Krugman, vice chancellor for health affairs, said in an interview in January 2011.

A few months later, Stanford University took disciplinary action against five faculty members identified by ProPublica who had taken money to deliver drug company speeches, a violation of university policy.

And by last fall, there were indications that pharmaceutical companies were also reducing the money they spent on doctor speakers."

The full article is recommended.