Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8272
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
Kassirer JP.
Author's Reply to Readers' Responses to 'Physicians on the Take'
Medscape General Medicine 2006; 8:(2):40
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/531613
Full text:
The proponents of a free-market approach in medicine seem willing to ignore its consequences: biased information, risks to patients, uncontrollable costs, and millions deprived of adequate care.1 I’m not. Extricating the profession from the financial magnetism of the pharmaceutical industry will force us to examine where we get and how we use our resources. Just because reducing our ties with industry will cost us money is no excuse for inaction. We must set impeccable, lofty professional standards: Just because such standards are difficult to realize is no excuse to diminish or discredit them. In my view, the money is not worth the risks to our patients and the denigration of our professionalism.
