“I’ve been in medicine 40 years, and medicine is incomparably better than when I started out’’
Here is why the looter, 'er, doctor can make that diagnosis.
"Perks policy for doctors challenged; Physician organization wants limits rolled back" by Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff | July 23, 2009
A growing number of hospitals, universities, and states are barring drug companies from buying physicians dinner, hiring them as speakers, and giving them even token gifts.
Now, a new organization of doctors - several from Boston - wants to roll back policies curbing interactions between doctors and drug company representatives, saying restrictive rules ultimately will hurt the patients they’re designed to protect.
Related: Big Pharma Bribes Doctors to Hook Your Kids on Drugs
Prescribing Our Kids to Death
Poisoning Our Kids: From Potions to Pills to Playgrounds
The group, called the Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators, plans to hold its first conference today at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to promote “productive collaboration’’ between industry and physicians, which they say leads to better medicines and treatments.
Sounds like a CONSPIRACY, doesn't it?
Dr. Jeffrey Flier, dean of Harvard Medical School, is one of 25 speakers and will give the welcoming remarks to about 200 attendees.
Strange that the Globe never followed up(?).
The group’s website says its long-term goals include reversing restrictive new conflict-of-interest policies and establishing chapters at universities and within medical specialty societies.
Sort of like secret societies of mad scientists?
Dr. Thomas Stossel, an oncologist at the Brigham, said his group “wants to create an outcry against’’ the law. The law also requires drug and device companies to disclose publicly most payments made to doctors for consulting....
Why don't you JOIN the ONE against the BANKS?
Because YOU WILL FIND NO SYMPATHY HERE!
The association’s goals, which run contrary to the widespread movement in medicine to create more distance between doctors and pharmaceutical companies, have been widely discussed - and often derided - on healthcare blogs in the past several weeks.
:-)
Advocates of the restrictions believe drug companies, by giving doctors gifts and paying them to speak and consult, create bias in favor of their products, causing doctors to write more prescriptions for expensive new drugs even if patients don’t really need the medication or if an older, less expensive drug would work just as well.
That's odd; they never grant my requests for refills around here.
Dr. Peter Slavin, president of Mass. General, has said that company-funded meals, gifts, and other practices don’t promote a positive image of doctors and increase healthcare costs. “The rules benefit consumers by removing the conflicts that we know cloud judgment, and let doctors make decisions free from market pressures,’’ said Brian Rosman, research director for Health Care For All, a Boston-based patient advocacy group.
But Stossel and his colleagues said the new rules stifle invention. They believe the impact of small gifts and meals on doctors is negligible compared with the benefit of collaboration.
There is that word again.
“I’ve been in medicine 40 years, and medicine is incomparably better than when I started out,’’ Stossel said. “I don’t think anyone can challenge the fact that it’s because of the tools we’ve gotten from industry.’’
Stossel is a former member of Cambridge-based Biogen Idec’s scientific advisory board.
Cha-ching!
He said he now does occasional consulting to companies on conflict-of-interest policies. The conference is funded by attendees’ fees, though participants who work for drug and device companies are charged more, he said.
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