The pharmaceutical industry as a whole is not only wildly successful financially (with $643 billion in global sales in 2006), but has power and influence in places one might not suspect...
In fact, some of their activities strike me as downright wrong- like pre-influencing your future doctor in favor of their product(s) while he's/she's still in med school. And by getting the med school department heads, who usually have vested financial interests in the pharmaceutical companies, to teach and/or research what the drug company wants taught.
Speaking as someone who has been harmed significantly by under-researched drugs starting before birth with D.E.S. exposure, I find this wrong on many levels.
How many med students even realize that almost 2/3 of department heads at U.S. medical schools have some type of financial relationship with drug and device industries? I'm guessing not many...
I cannot imagine that the average super-busy med student has the time or inclination between A&P and Patho-physiology classes and clinicals to research her/his med school's hidden financial ties to drug and DME companies.
Would they even want to consider that there might be corporate agendas driving what they're being taught and/or what research they're doing?
I wouldn't think so, but a lot of med students do read or at least skim JAMA, so I hope they read this month's article "Institutional Academic–Industry Relationships". Cutting to the chase, it concludes that "...overall, institutional academic–industry relationships are highly prevalent and underscore the need for their active disclosure and management."
The details make better reading...about 60% of department heads at U.S. medical schools have some type of personal financial relationship with drug and medical device companies, and 72% admit that the vested interests can damage an institution's ability to do unbiased teaching and research.
This is according to a recent IMS Health Market Research survey, the first to clearly show ties between drugmakers and the leaders of institutions that research diseases and new drugs; medical department chiefs influence medical school curricula, budgets, and the future careers of faculty and students, according to researchers.
"Drug companies have influence in every single aspect of medical education in the United States, and the question is how much is too much?'' said Eric Campbell, a health policy researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and the study's lead author.
The survey was conducted among department heads at all 125 U.S. medical schools and the 15 largest independent teaching hospitals in the U.S. The chairmen were polled anonymously to encourage response, the study's authors said. The authors received answers from 459 of 688 of those contacted.
About Paid Attendance and Travel ~ 21% of department heads said they got money for their own research from companies, 28% said they were personally paid to participate in a conference or meeting, & 16% received free or reduced travel, meals or lodging. for some reason this survey did not ask how much actual money they received.
Ironically, about two-thirds of those surveyed insisted that their relationship with a company had no effect on how their department operates, but when asked their opinion about other departments getting money from a company, most responders said that the relationship does have a negative effect on independent research and teaching!
Many medical schools are considering new rules to limit the influence of drugmakers on research and teaching, such as refusing to accept free meals.
They kinda hate to cut those purse strings, though, since "the money can also have a positive effect on education". About two-thirds of department heads opine that grants of $10,000 or less with no strings attached help a department offer independent, unbiased education.
One in four surveyed said that restricted grants of more than $100,000 help produce unbiased research! Yeah, right...
One idea for a follow-up study is to ask medical schools about their curricula, said Campbell, the study's lead author. "It's possible, for example, that psychiatry departments who receive money from drugmakers may emphasize medication over alternative treatments," Campbell said.
Like clinically paranoid patients needed something else real to worry about, bless their troubled hearts...
He said he hopes that independent committees at medical schools will consider ways to curb industry influence. ``Anything that compromises the mission of medical schools, which is unbiased and independent research and education, shouldn't be allowed,'' Campbell said.
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