Two recent Australian news stories point to conflicts of interest in Australian health care.
One, "Doctors have unhealthy desire for gifts," discussed a survey of 823 medical specialists about what companies gave them and what they asked for. The lead author concluded, "Doctors are sometimes seen as the innocent victims, and the villains in the piece are the pharmaceutical industry. In reality, it is a two-way relationship."
The other story, "Mental health takes industry pills," reports that Australia's "most influential mental illness advocacy group signed a deal that financially tied it to some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies." A spokesman for the group called Healthy Skepticism reacted: "The strategy is all about growing markets and increasing sales."
These are two important stories that may only give you the twisted satisfaction that we're not alone in our entanglement of conflicts of interest in U.S. health care.
Posted by schwitz at August 10, 2006 10:58 AM | TrackBack