Washington Post covers the
JAMA piece just out by Brennan et al. calling for academic medical centers to take the lead in purging inappropriate gifts by pharmaceutical companies to physicians. The JAMA piece is pretty short but here are the highlights:
A physicians group called for new steps to sever ties between manufacturers and practitioners at academic medical centers.
• Ban gifts to physicians from drug and device makers, including meals and payment for travel and continuing education.
• Bar direct distribution of drug samples to physicians. Replace them with vouchers for low-income patients.
• Exclude physicians with financial relationships to manufacturers from committees overseeing preferrred drug lists.
• Ban physicians from speaking at manufacturers' events or publishing articles ghost-written by industry employees.
• Post consulting and research contracts on a publicly available Web site.
