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Issue Brief
AAMC: The Scientific Basis of Influence and Bias
The Association of American Medical Colleges recently published "The Scientific Basis of Influence and Bias" based on a symposium held in June 2007 in Washington D.C. The report approaches the question of whether physicians can be influenced by pharmaceutical marketing and financial conflicts of interest from a neuroscientific perspective. We hope we're not giving away anything here when we say they found 'yes.'
"An effective and principled partnership between academic medical centers and various health industries is critical to capture the fruits of biomedical research and ensure that the best scientific evidence is deployed toward advancing the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. However, given the fundamental differences between the missions, fiduciary obligations, and cultural norms of academic medical centers and those of commercial enterprises, it is inevitable that potential conflicts of interest will arise in the course of their interactions. To ensure that their relationship remains principled and capable of withstanding intense public scrutiny, academic medical centers and industry must be aware of these conflicts and manage them scrupulously."
The full report is available free in print or PDF format at the AAMC website.
"The legislation requiring public disclosure of the financial relationships between healthcare vendors and physicians has been widely discussed in policy circles for years. Critics claimed payments for speaking, consulting, research or even the small trinkets and meals delivered during routine sales calls unduly influenced physician choices and inflated healthcare costs. To combat those effects, Congress required public reporting of those payments in a publicly accessible database. The legislation, labeled the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, was included in the 2010 healthcare reform law."
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Prescription project director Danny Carlat identifies issues with the Physician Payments Sunshine Act requiring further clarification and guidance. Addressing those would ensure that manufacturers can appropriately implement the final rule, and enable consumers to benefit from transparency reports published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
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The Pew Charitable Trusts is working to decrease the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on doctors’ practices. With a three-year grant from the Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program, Pew is collaborating several partners to improve conflict-of-interest policies within the 158 medical schools and 400 major teaching hospitals in the United States.
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The Pew Charitable Trusts appreciates this opportunity to submit comments to CMS's "Information Collection Activities" draft guidance. We suggest that both the research and non-research payment templates be modified in order to make it easier for consumers to identify which drugs, devices, biologicals, or medical supplies are associated with particular transfers of value.
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On Feb. 1, 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published the final rule guiding implementation of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which Congress passed as part of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010 to increase transparency in the relationships between physicians and drug and medical device makers. Here are some of the highlights.
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