Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5529

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Woollard RF.
Addressing the pharmaceutical industry's influence on professional behaviour.
CMAJ 1993 Aug 15; 149:(4):403-4
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=8348421

Abstract:

The guidelines developed at McMaster University by Guyatt and colleagues started with a review of the relationship between the medical faculty and the industry. The focused commitment of the residency program chair moved the proposed guidelines from discussion to implementation avoiding both a “holier-than-thou” zealotry and “paralysis by analysis.” Guyatt and colleagues achieved this end by stating their three assumptions: 1) the primary goal of the industry is show a profit; 2) the individual physician should not accept gifts from industry; and 3) the provision of grants should not result in increased access to trainees by the grant providers. Many faculty members viewed the description of the industry as being too negative. This attempt by the profession to refuse to state the obvious is part of a “three-step dance.” The second step is to deny that industry-physician interactions are meant to influence physicians and the third step is to deny that such influence is successful. The dissemination and implementation of the guidelines is another matter and one that has been the greatest disappointment of the Canadian Medical Association process.

Keywords:
Drug Industry* Faculty, Medical Guidelines* Humans Internship and Residency/standards* Interprofessional Relations* Ontario *editorial/Canada/guidelines, discussion of/ attitude toward industry/ McMaster University/ relationship between physicians in training and industry/ relationship between medical profession and industry/ quality of prescribing/ATTITUDES REGARDING PROMOTION: HEALTH PROFESSIONALS/EDUCATING ABOUT PROMOTION: PHYSICIANS IN TRAINING/ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: LINKS BETWEEN HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND INDUSTRY/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: CONTACT WITH MEDICAL STUDENTS AND HOSPITAL STAFF