A new report by the Institute of Medicine urges all academic medical centers, journals, professional societies, and organizations engaged in health research, education, clinical care, and development of practice guidelines to use voluntary and regulatory measures to prevent financial conflicts of interest. To start, physicians and researchers should disclose their financial links to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device firms in a standardized format to help institutions judge the risk that a relationship poses. In addition, Congress should require pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and device firms to report through a public Web site the payments they make to doctors, researchers, academic health centers, professional societies, patient advocacy groups, and others to deter undue industry influence.
The report urges researchers, medical school faculty, and private-practice doctors to forgo gifts of any amount from medical companies and to decline to publish or present material controlled by industry. Consulting arrangements should be limited to legitimate expert services spelled out in formal contracts and paid for at a fair market rate. Groups that develop guidelines should not accept direct industry funding and should exclude individuals with conflicts of interest from their panels. In addition, the current system for financing accredited continuing medical education relies too heavily on industry support and needs to be overhauled to be free of industry influence. The report emphasizes that voluntary efforts by medical groups, industry, and individual professionals are more likely to reinforce professional values and foster policies that minimize unintended consequences and administrative burdens.
