Healthy Skepticism Library item: 9868

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: news

Report: Drugmakers Are Abusing Medical Education Grants
Therapeutics Daily (registration required) 2007 Apr 25
http://www.therapeuticsdaily.com/news/article.cfm?contentValue=1329379&contentType=sentryarticle&channelID=33

Abstract:

A nearly two-year investigation by the Senate Finance Committee has concluded that pharmaceutical companies are abusing grants to gain influence over continuing medical education programs and illegally promoting unapproved uses of their drugs — and guidelines put in place by several stakeholders are not enough to stop the practice.

Essentially, drug companies are using the grants to expand their market for new products, according to an advance copy of the 106-page report, which raised two concerns for Senate Finance Chairman Baucus and ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa: that new products are more expensive, which increases government spending, and that they have a less established safety record.

Pharmaceutical companies offer financial …