Document Detail


Pharmaceutical industry financial support for medical education: benefit, or undue influence?
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  19723256     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Presently, the pharmaceutical industry funds about half of the costs of continuing medical education (CME) programs in the U.S. This contributes to the ethical problems that pervade the relationship between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry: trustworthiness and conflicts of interest. The problems are exacerbated by rationalizations prevalent on both sides that deny the ethical concerns. Commercialism and commercial bias are highly visible at large CME gatherings, and available data, while scanty, back up the view that physician attendees' subsequent prescribing practices are influenced by the commercial message. The industry believes that it will recoup $3.56 in increased sales for every dollar that it invests in CME. New guidelines instituted by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) in 2004 may succeed in reducing excessive commercial influence, especially since the Department of Health and Human Services has also warned the industry of possible anti-kickback violations if firewalls are not erected between CME funding and marketing of drugs. Critics counter that early indicators of improvement are lacking.
Authors:
Howard Brody
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics     Volume:  37     ISSN:  1073-1105     ISO Abbreviation:  -     Publication Date:  2009  
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2009-09-02     Completed Date:  2009-10-27     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  9315583     Medline TA:  J Law Med Ethics     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  451-60, 396     Citation Subset:  T    
Affiliation:
Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, USA.
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Conflict of Interest*
Drug Industry / economics,  ethics*
Education, Medical, Continuing / economics,  ethics*
Humans
Training Support / ethics*
United States

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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