Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15586

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

Roehr B
Report calls for end of drug promotion to doctors.
BMJ. 2009 May 5; 338:b1852:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/may05_2/b1852

Abstract:

Product promotion among doctors by drug companies and medical device manufacturers should be virtually eliminated, and remaining research and educational ties should become completely transparent, a new report from the US Institute of Medicine recommends.

The institute’s president, Harvey Fineberg, said that the report “sets a new standard for comprehensiveness” across the spectrum of activity-from research and treatment guidelines to education and training of healthcare professionals and regular clinical practice.

He said he was particularly pleased that the report focuses on “prevention and anticipation, as opposed simply to responding after the fact to these problems.”

Bernard Lo, a medical ethicist at the University of California, San Francisco, chaired the committee that wrote the report. He said that conflicts of interest are “a vital issue that goes to the heart of patient trust.” The recommendations “reinforce and advance” those made by more than a dozen other groups over the past few . . .