The spigot of free gifts, travel and other give aways to doctors, professors and students in the nation’s 129 medical schools is about to be closed. Gosh, I don’t know how they’ll manage…

The New York Times brings us the story today:

Drug and medical device companies should be banned from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff members and students in all 129 of the nation’s medical colleges, an influential college association has concluded.

The proposed ban is the result of a two-year effort by the group, the Association of American Medical Colleges, to create a model policy governing interactions between the schools and industry. While schools can ignore the association’s advice, most follow its recommendations.

What’s all the hubbub about anyway? Well, big dollars = big influence:

Drug companies spend billions wooing doctors — more than they spend on research or consumer advertising. Medical schools, packed with prominent professors and impressionable trainees, are particularly attractive marketing targets.

So companies have for decades provided faculty and students free food and gifts, offered lucrative consulting arrangements to top-notch teachers and even ghost-wrote research papers for busy professors.

In addition to the gift, food and travel bans, the report recommended that medical schools should “strongly discourage participation by their faculty in industry-sponsored speakers’ bureaus,” in which doctors are paid to promote drug and device benefits.

The unintentionally funniest part from the article, however, is this quote from Ken Johnson from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America industry group:

“Providing physicians — and medical students — with timely, accurate information about the medicines they prescribe clearly benefits patients and advances healthcare throughout the United States,” Mr. Johnson said.

Yes, because as we all know, doctors and students could only possibly get unbiased information about medicines from the manufacturers themselves. Not from anything completely objective or anything like, oh I don’t know, perhaps a medical journal or such?!

Honestly, do they think doctors’ only way of obtaining useful information about medications is through them?

Read the full article: Group Urges Ban on Medical Giveaways

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 28 Apr 2008
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