Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18215

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: Electronic Source

Wang SS
What’s Behind the New APA Conflict of Interest Code
The Wall Street Journal 2010 Jun 11
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/06/11/whats-behind-the-new-apa-conflict-of-interest-code/

Full text:

The APA today released its new code of conduct for working with the pharmaceutical industry. The principles and guidelines don’t provide a lot of specifics and reflect a lot of what the APA has already said it would do, focusing on transparency and the need to be clear about what is education and what is marketing. (Here’s the WSJ story, with context on the issue.)

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the guidelines was the organization’s purpose in putting them out – not to eliminate a relationship with Big Pharma, but rather to develop a “collaborative relationship” with industry, APA immediate past president Alan Schatzberg, who convened the task force to develop the guidelines, tells the Health Blog. “It really is not in anyone’s best interest to shut out an industry voice.”

Schatzberg, also the chairman of the psychiatry department at Stanford University, has faced past criticism for his ties with drug makers.

James Scully, CEO of the APA, agrees. “We want a good relationship with the pharmaceutical industry,” he tells the Health Blog. “They have a role to play in developing new drugs.” The APA cares less about whether doctors accept pens from drug sales reps than about larger issues, Scully says. “What we wanted to clear about is that our educational programs were free of bias.”

The American Psychiatric Association is a member of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, which recently announced its own code covering conflicts of interest, financial disclosure, independent program development and independent leadership. The APA wasn’t among the original 13 adopters of the code.