Medical schools should implement bans on pharmaceutical, medical device industry gifts, editorial states

A report released on Sunday by a task force of the Association of American Medical Colleges that recommends new restrictions on what physicians, staff members and students at U.S. medical schools can accept from drug companies and medical device makers is "encouraging," but it "flinched" on some important issues, a New York Times editorial states (New York Times, 4/29).

The report recommends that all 129 U.S. medical schools not allow pharmaceutical and medical device companies to provide food, gifts and travel to physicians, faculty members and students. The report also recommends that medical schools "strongly discourage participation by their faculty in industry-sponsored speakers' bureaus," as well as establish centralized systems for the acceptance of medication samples from pharmaceutical companies or develop "alternative ways to manage pharmaceutical sample distribution that do not carry the risks to professionalism with which current practices are associated." Medical schools also should audit independently accredited continuing medical education programs led by faculty members "for the presence of inappropriate influence," according to the report (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 4/28).

However, the report "stopped short of calling for a complete ban on the highly dubious practice" of participation in speaker bureaus by medical school faculty members and "did not call for an end to industry subsidies of continuing medical education programs that doctors must take to retain their licenses." The editorial states, "We hope the schools quickly adopt" the recommendations in the report -- and "strengthen them -- and that the entire medical profession follows their lead," adding, "Patients need to be assured that their doctors are prescribing what's best for them, not what's best for companies" (New York Times, 4/29).