by Tracy Weber and Charles Ornstein
ProPublica
Jan. 19, 2011, 2:53 p.m.
The University of Colorado Denver and its affiliated teaching hospitals have launched an overhaul of conflict of interest policies after a ProPublica database revealed extensive ties between its faculty and pharmaceutical companies.
At a meeting of the faculty senate last week, Dr. Richard Krugman, vice chancellor for health affairs, said he hoped members would soon consider a policy to clearly ban faculty from delivering talks for drug companies.
Without such a clear rule, he said, the school faces a loss of public trust, damage to its reputation and the specter of it physicians parroting industry-designed materials.
“While we value and want to increase our relationships with industry around [drug] discovery … we’re going to just have to say we’re not going to be involved with these speakers bureaus because they’re primarily marketing,” Krugman said in an interview Wednesday.
The meeting followed a ProPublica story last month that detailed how physicians at leading universities and academic medical centers, including UC Denver, were taking drug company money in apparent violation of their institutions’ rules. Other universities have indicated they plan similar reviews and crackdowns on faculty who are violating their policies.
ProPublica’s Dollars for Docs database identified physicians receiving drug company payments for speaking, consulting and other duties. The data include disclosures from Eli Lilly & Co., AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Pfizer and Cephalon for various periods during 2009 and 2010.
ProPublica identified 13 UC Denver physicians whom drug companies reported paying to deliver promotional talks. Dr. Michael McDermott, director of endocrinology and diabetes practice, received $117,000 from Lilly.
In an e-mail at the time, McDermott said he was re-evaluating his participation.
Solutions, a health policy news website run by UC Denver’s School of Public Affairs, first reported on the faculty meeting, noting that an internal review at the medical school found that 46 full-time faculty members had been paid by drug companies for speaking or consulting. Only four had sought permission from the school to do the work, as required by a 2008 policy.
Krugman attributed the lack of preapproval to a misinterpretation of the policy. “It has identified a weakness,” he told ProPublica. “Some would call it a loophole. Others would call it just an unintended consequence of our language.”
Until the policy review is complete, Krugman said he would not approve new speaking contracts. Arrangements previously approved could remain in place until the new policy takes effect, he said.
This week, The Denver Post also reported about the ethics reviews at the school and hospitals in the area.
Too much ado about nothing.
I’m so sick of die-hard party loyalty and blindness! If a right-wing shifted article is posted, the liberals will whine like babies. If a left-wing shifted article is posted, conservatives whine equally as much. Grow up and leave the whining for our children. Sonny: did you read the last featured article and its comments?
Is this really a partisan issue? I see it as clearly a conflict of interest. And a serious one.
I lean pretty far to the right and am all about capitalism, but this is just MDs miss-using their positions.
Damn commies. Pretty soon, we will see stories demonizing docs who charged for their services.
The reason why SDN may be perceived as left-wing is because they’re interested in facts. Unlike the right wing which is hell-bent on driving our economy down. But, enough of political arguments.
All this right wing and left wing has me yearning for some spicy wings! BTW, ya’ll gots ta chill!
What an introduction to SDN: “Left”, “right”, “commies.” I see I came to the right place for focused discussion; it’s just not intelligent.
(Perhaps with the above statement, I’m just as guilty of posting idiocy, but if just one person gets the message, my job’s well-enough done.)
While I agree that this is clearly a conflict of interest, the debate should continue to determine if conflict of interest is acceptable or not. I for one think it is wholly unacceptable but I find hypocrisy in our society for saying that it is acceptable as long as it is in politics and not medicine. Clearly a profession that is supposed to be selfless and centered around serving the people should not allow conflict of interest situations. It’s ok for politicians to take handouts from corporations but heaven forbid physicians from doing it.
there are many self-important people here. (ooh, look at me, i’m so political).
Yeah, enough of partisan talk, although I do understand where the “commie” comments are coming from.
Being a proud capitalist myself, I see no problem in docs receiving money from pharm companies for their services. However, the conflict-of-interest (COI) seems legit, since we want to trust our doctors that they’re doing the right things (researching and studying the drug) rather than just taking easy money and promoting drugs and technology without evaluating those products. By evaluating third-party products such as drugs and tech, doctors provide a valuable (hence, worth money) service to the companies because the doctors are liaisons between the companies and the patients.
Therefore, it would be a good idea if doctors would declare, straight out, to which company they provide this service (i.e. who pays them) and what LEGITIMATE reasons they have to promote the products of those companies. Any doctor who receives cash from the companies and does not “do his homework” is doing a disservice to himself, his patients, and yes, the pharm company, and should be ashamed. However, there is no reason why any doctor who is paid by companies to research and look into a drug from a medical standpoint should feel guilty for accepting money (no matter how much!), or feel like he’s betraying his patients’ trust, as long as his patients can access the information regarding the doctor-company relationship.
Sharon, that’s not going to happen…if it does (or starts to look like it), you’ll start to see physicians increasingly shift from the insurance/hospital scene into the private physician (a.k.a. “Concierge”) model.
Heck, if that doesn’t work, there’s always Galt’s Gulch (inside joke, everybody. If you got it, consider yourself one of the top educated 5% of the U.S.)
I thought it was one of the fringe benefits of being in academic and helped equalize the salary difference for choosing the “greater cause” of academics compared to settling for private practice.