Institute Of Medicine Pushes Docs To Halt Gifts From Pharma

Much of this will come as old news to most readers of this site, but an Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academy of Sciences) panel has issued a report wherein it found all sorts of conflicts of interest in relationships between docs (and doctor training) and pharma companies, and wherein it found such relationships unacceptable, and wherein it called upon docs (medical schools, etc.) to stop taking gifts (which run the gamut from pens to strippers), free samples and underwriting of continuing medical education courses. Or at least to publicly reveal those relationships.

The IOM panel was speaking to all of medicine, not just psychiatry.

Of course, such relationships strip away public trust in docs and their advice (much less their research findings) because any smart consumer will wonder whose team their doc is on when their doc gets speaking fees from AstraZeneca, say, and their CME courses are paid for by Eli Lilly and the like.

The IOM is a very influential body in the medical world, so it'll be interesting to see what effect this all has. On his blog, psychiatrist Danny Carlat calls the report a "knock out blow to greed in medicine." Bernard Carroll at Health Care Renewal offers his thoughts on some possible conflicts around the IOM.