Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13077

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: news

Calabresi L.
In defence of sponsorship
6minutes.com 2008 Mar 7
www.6minutes.com.au/dirplus/images/6minutes/newspluspharma/7_03_2008.pdf

Full text:

Do you ever get the feeling general practice is getting policed to within an inch of its life?
In particular, the way in which we are being scrutinised for any possible influence by those big, bad pharma companies. We are now having to defend the independence of well-recognised medical authorities who speak at drug-company sponsored educational events.

This latest attack comes from that self-proclaimed champion of us poor, vulnerable doctors,
Ray Moynihan, in a recent article in the BMJ. He attacks a medical education group over a sponsoring pharma company’s suggestions as to possible speakers for their seminar.
The unwritten accusation is that the speakers at these seminars are not independent
and the information they presented is biased. Whether this is true or not is not the point according to the editorial, education should be totally independent of pharma company influence.
In my experience, the most popular education events are those where the speaker is a well-recognised authority on the topic. In Australia this often comes down to a choice between a handful of people.

Who suggests this person to the event organiser is really of little interest to the audience.

Now, I’m all for medical independence. Having worked for independent medical publications for 10 years I am fully aware that such independence is vital for credibility. That said, I believe
as a profession we gain much more than we lose by pharma sponsorship. Of course these companies have an agenda but we also have obligation to stay up to date and pharma sponsorship ensures there is
a wide range and variety of opportunities to do this.

Is there any evidence that suggests health outcomes for patients are worse because of these pharma-sponsored education sessions?
If we were to reject their sponsorship altogether aren’t we at risk of cutting off our nose to spite our face?