Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6392

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

Standridge JB.
Of doctor conventions and drug companies.
Fam Med 2006 Jul-Aug 01; 38:(7):518-20
http://www.stfm.org/fmhub/fm2006/July/John518.pdf

Abstract:

Pharmaceutical companies provide the majority of financial support for staging the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Annual Scientific Assembly. In return they are allowed to dominate the physical and mental environment. The assembly is opulent and entertaining, but undoubtedly much of the expense is passed to the health care consumer in the form of high-priced brand-name prescription drugs. Additionally, public perception of such spectacles threatens the image that the AAFP has been careful to nurture—that family physicians are the ultimate advocates for our patients and, by extension, the health care-consuming public. Family physicians and our representative AAFP must recognize our complicity with and vulnerability to media forces. We must further adjust our role, not only to avoid the appearance of impropriety but to rededicate ourselves to our science, our intellectual basis, and ultimately our patients

Keywords:
Conflict of Interest Congresses/economics* Drug Industry* Financing, Organized Gift Giving Humans Mass Media Physicians, Family* Public Opinion United States