Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15774

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

Lenzer J.
Doctors’ group files legal charges against nine French doctors
BMJ. 2009 Jun 11; 338:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/jun11_1/b2347

Abstract:

A doctors’ organisation has filed legal charges against nine French “key opinion leaders” for allegedly failing to disclose their ties to drug manufacturers. The nine doctors are considered top authorities on a range of subjects, from menopause and diabetes care to Alzheimer’s disease.

The doctors’ group that filed the charges, Formindep (Formation Independante), is a non-profit organisation based in Roubaix, France, that promotes independent medical information. They filed the charges with the French professional authority, Ordre National des Médecins (a body to which all doctors have to belong), after they reviewed statements made by 150 doctors in 30 professional and lay media outlets during a one month period in the spring of 2008 and found that “not a single health professional declared any conflicts of interest.”

In a 27 April statement, the group said, “These doctors’ medical expertise and ability to speak with confidence to the media make them the . . .