According to the logic of Pfizer's new CME policy, commercial speech should be discontinued because of the appearance of conflict of interest. Or rather, the content of commercial speech -- and the freedom to pursue -- shall now be abridged by those who define what the conflict is, namely the academic medical centers, who will also get the cash that once went to for profit companies. Put another way:
Is there a difference in the quality of communication when money is given to a non-profit provider of information, especially when that money is shifted from the objects of criticism to the critics? Or is this simply a matter of turning medical education into hush money?
Can academic medical centers, who have treated primary care issues and primary care physicians as abused stepchildren, really run top quality CME programs? Can medical societies, usually staffed by two people and a temp do the job?
CME is too important -- particularly for the minority community -- to be left to amateurs who think it is a dirty business, not an important component of the public health.
It's one thing to insure that CME is objective and made widely available and affordable to as many clinicians as possible using both online and in person formats. It's another thing to shut down an important avenue for disseminating information: for-profit organizations.
The last time I checked medical schools and AMCs were for grabbing tuition, grants, fees, endowments, spending millions on marketing, ads, endorsements, wooing high profile specialists and practices. And they make no bones making people like you and me, when we have no insurance, paying upfront and top dollar for the quality care the advertise on TV and on the visors they give away at baseball games.
Somehow when a drug company wants to spend millions to educate doctors, not on their drugs, but on disease management, that's a scummy thing to do.
I am sick and tired of the pontification on the one hand and the pharmaceutical cowardice on the other.
Caving in does not buy peace, it only prompts more attacks.
As Thomas Jefferson observed: "A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit. "
Is there a difference in the quality of communication when money is given to a non-profit provider of information, especially when that money is shifted from the objects of criticism to the critics? Or is this simply a matter of turning medical education into hush money?
Can academic medical centers, who have treated primary care issues and primary care physicians as abused stepchildren, really run top quality CME programs? Can medical societies, usually staffed by two people and a temp do the job?
CME is too important -- particularly for the minority community -- to be left to amateurs who think it is a dirty business, not an important component of the public health.
It's one thing to insure that CME is objective and made widely available and affordable to as many clinicians as possible using both online and in person formats. It's another thing to shut down an important avenue for disseminating information: for-profit organizations.
The last time I checked medical schools and AMCs were for grabbing tuition, grants, fees, endowments, spending millions on marketing, ads, endorsements, wooing high profile specialists and practices. And they make no bones making people like you and me, when we have no insurance, paying upfront and top dollar for the quality care the advertise on TV and on the visors they give away at baseball games.
Somehow when a drug company wants to spend millions to educate doctors, not on their drugs, but on disease management, that's a scummy thing to do.
I am sick and tired of the pontification on the one hand and the pharmaceutical cowardice on the other.
Caving in does not buy peace, it only prompts more attacks.
As Thomas Jefferson observed: "A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit. "
