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This is not a new topic, but I have to say I am most sympathetic to the plight of the students and I really have to wonder about the over influence.
However, I do think there is some room for some formal arrangement between Med Schools/research facilities and Pharma. I am leaning to the Universities selling their research to Pharma and possibly partnering more with clinical trials and research. No one gets anything for free, hopefully this would do away with all the graft. People will get paid for work they do, not lobbying. Is there really any discernible difference between plying doctors with gifts/dinner, and other forms of "graft" and being paid and hired as a lobbyist? The Universites should decide who they sell their innovations/research to and for how much.
Hope Senator Grassley wins and gains even more momentum. We need to be assured that we are accessing top notch research and medical advice that is based on empiraclly credible data, from credible research conducted under strict ethical controls.
We need to keep corporations out of schools, Universities and hospitals. If they want to give us money, we need to earn it and/or sell TO them.
That's my two cents - what yours?
1st Article:
I am with Arnold Relman on this one. He said, "These investigators should be well paid by their institutions, and they should have the time and resources needed to do their research, but they should not expect to be personally enriched beyond that [Improper Rewards of Research, The Boston Globe, July 12, 2008]."
ReplyDeleteAs I read the NYT article, the students are asking for very little--only that instuctors disclose their industry connections. To me, that doesn't mean much. Steve Nissen's paid connections are a mile long.
ReplyDeleteSo the administration seems more radical than the students at this point re: the degree and level of disclosure and, possibly, limitations being reviewed.
We tend to forget that the alliance between academic medical centers and pharma is a fairly new invention. In the meantime, pharma has moved its investments into CROs and away from such centers as the latter's guidelines grow more teeth.
I'd say grow the teeth first. And I'd also recommend Howard Brody's _Hooked_ which argues the cases for and against complete divestment (he leans toward the former).
BTW, there was an earlier NYT story about a photographer associated with Pfizer taking photos of the students involved. Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/business/03pfizer.html
You be the judge of what is being intended.
We should listen the side of he Institution before making the issue big. The Harvard University have a prestige to protect and this kind of issue can make them more stronger. Bad issue can cause trouble.
ReplyDeleteFormer Marketing said, “Is there really any discernible difference between plying doctors with gifts/dinner, and other forms of "graft" and being paid and hired as a lobbyist?... We need to be assured that we are accessing top notch research and medical advice that is based on empirically credible data, from credible research conducted under strict ethical controls.”
ReplyDeleteAlicia Mundy covered this issue in a fascinating article, published in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, on how lobbying affected the FDA approval process in one case:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629954783946701.html#mod
Agree that this was a great article. I always think the WSJ is going to take Alicia M. and leave her out in the woods some day. It's interesting that they do this kind of reporting on one side, and hold the editorial views they do on the other.
ReplyDeleteWhat we increasingly hear about is not onlyh companies "lobbying" FDA reviewing, but getting pols to work for them. This is also an old story for Alicia, who described such efforts by Tom Lantos among others during the fen-phen saga.