Sociedades Médicas e Conflitos de Interesse

Concerns about the influence of industry money have prompted universities such as Stanford and the University of Colorado-Denver to ban drug sales representatives from the halls of their hospitals and bar doctors from paid promotional speaking. Yet, one area of medicine still welcomes the largesse: societies that represent specialists. It’s a relationship largely hidden from public view, said David Rothman, who studies conflicts of interest in medicine as director of the Center on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University. Leia mais em Financial Ties Bind Medical Societies to Drug and Device Makers.

A situação foi comentada por Howard Brody em Medical Specialty Societies On the Take.

And of course the specialty societies insist that none of their behavior is in any way influenced by their dependence on industry cash--which they frankly admit they could not figure out a way to do without.

The degree of either naivete or rationalization among the leadership of these organizations is well represented in a statement by Dr. Jack Lewin, CEO of the American College of Cardiology: “I don’t buy a soft drink just because of the advertising… I buy it because I like it.” Just think about this for a minute. The beverage companies, which last time I heard are making tidy profits, have at their beck and call all sorts of sociological and psychological expertise as to what sort of advertising works and what doesn't. Based on that expertise they have chosen to spend millions on advertising. They are obviously betting that the normally constructed human will be influenced by those ads. LEIA MAIS

Dr. Carlat também comentou o assunto: Lub-dub, Lub-dub, Lub-dub...KA-CHING!.

The bottom line is that nearly half of the $16 million in income received by the Heart Rhythm Society in 2010 was from companies producing heart devices and drugs. In written responses to ProPublica, the society's president and president-elect deny that there is any problem whatsoever: "The society has sufficient measures in place to prevent undue influence from industry or introduction of industry bias into HRS-sponsored educational programs, research, scientific documents and policy initiatives." LEIA MAIS

Sobrando interesse, conheça também a opinião de Edwin Gale sobre o mesmo assunto em UNISIMERS (2010).

Sempre me impressiona porquê tanto dinheiro, se é possível fazer eventos com muito menos.