October 17, 2007

Influence of industry on academic medicine

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association gives perhaps the best picture yet of how extensive are industry-academic relationships are in medicine. The authors surveyed department chairs in the 125 accredited allopathic medical schools and the 15 largest independent teaching hospitals in the United States. 67 percent of the 688 eligible department chairs completed the survey.

It showed that "almost two-thirds (60%) of department chairs had some form of personal relationship with industry, including serving as a consultant (27%), a member of a scientific advisory board (27%), a paid speaker (14%), an officer (7%), a founder (9%), or a member of the board of directors (11%). ... More than two-thirds of chairs perceived that having a relationship with industry had no effect on their professional activities, 72% viewed a chair's engaging in more than 1 industry-related activity (substantial role in a start-up company, consulting, or serving on a company's board) as having a negative impact on a department's ability to conduct independent unbiased research."

The authors concluded:

"Failure to address the existence and influence of industry relationships with academic institutions could endanger the trust of the public in US medical schools and teaching hospitals."

The Associated Press reports:

Dr. Jerome Kassirer, a former New England Journal of Medicine editor and frequent critic of industry influence over doctors, called the study eye-opening.

"I was appalled by the results," Kassirer said. "No one knew that so many chairs of medicine and psychiatry were paid speakers. We've never had that data before."

Posted by schwitz at October 17, 2007 09:40 AM | TrackBack
Comments

When a medical school dean is on the Pepsi board and pulls down $100K for one year's duty, what's a simple department chair(wo)man to do?

But we have a committee looking into conflict of interest at our medical school, co-chaired by Leo Furcht and Dennis Clohisy. I'm sure that everything will be straightened out.

Ciao,

Bonzo

Posted by: Bonzo at October 17, 2007 08:21 PM

Disclosure: I have been asked to serve on that committee.

Posted by: The Publisher at October 17, 2007 08:45 PM
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