Where's Senator Grassley when you need him?
Last week we wrote about “Tamiflurry.”
A brief recap:
On May 4-5 the Harvard Business School Health Alumni Association along with the Young Presidents Organization/World Presidents' Organization (YPO/WPO) sponsored a conference in Washington, DC, "Health Reform at the Intersection of Government and Markets.” After two days of robust debate and discussion over a wide range of issues, the event ended with a troubling episode.
So troubling, in fact, that one physician in attendance along with another independent businessman felt obligated to write to Randy Cohen, who pens “The Ethicist” column at the New York Times, with the following query:
“We were attending a conference on health reform which had included an impromptu presentation on the swine flu pandemic. As the conference was closing, a physician was introduced and he said that as a “treat” for all his fellow attendees he would write prescriptions for TAMIFLU and that if he ran out of scripts, he would send one to anyone who emailed him a request. A large line immediately formed of people eager to avoid the risk of shortages or rationing. When confronted with our question as to the ethics and legality of his offer, he explained that he was a physician and had worked with the CDC and was confident he was acting in a morally and professionally correct manner – was he? For that matter, were the conference organizers in ethically troubling territory?”
The full post can be found here.
Our post was directed at Dan Brock, the Director of the Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health.
Herewith (and with permission) is Dr. Brock’s response:
“If your description of what transpired is accurate, then the action of offering an Rx for Tamiflu to all the attendees at this meeting was in my view clearly unethical, and essentially for the reasons you and Randy Cohen cite. Physicians should not be writing prescriptions for persons who are not their patients, nor should they be encouraging others to stockpile a potentially scarce drug. Why the organizers of this event permitted it I have no idea, nor do I know who they were.
You ask what can I do about this. The answer is probably not much, and that is not because I do not believe that what you describe as transpiring was not wrong. But neither of the two ethics programs at Harvard that I direct put them or me in the role of "ethics police" for everything that goes on connected with Harvard Medical School. The obvious parties with whom a complaint should initially be lodged are the organizers of the event who apparently permitted this to go on at the meeting.
If the physician offering the prescriptions was a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty then a complaint could also be lodged with the medical school. HMS has procedures for responding to allegations of faculty misconduct, but neither I nor my programs are involved in that process. I agree that an investigation of the matter is appropriate and one or both of these parties should be in a position to do so.”
Senator Grassley – how about an investigation?
Last week we wrote about “Tamiflurry.”
A brief recap:
On May 4-5 the Harvard Business School Health Alumni Association along with the Young Presidents Organization/World Presidents' Organization (YPO/WPO) sponsored a conference in Washington, DC, "Health Reform at the Intersection of Government and Markets.” After two days of robust debate and discussion over a wide range of issues, the event ended with a troubling episode.
So troubling, in fact, that one physician in attendance along with another independent businessman felt obligated to write to Randy Cohen, who pens “The Ethicist” column at the New York Times, with the following query:
“We were attending a conference on health reform which had included an impromptu presentation on the swine flu pandemic. As the conference was closing, a physician was introduced and he said that as a “treat” for all his fellow attendees he would write prescriptions for TAMIFLU and that if he ran out of scripts, he would send one to anyone who emailed him a request. A large line immediately formed of people eager to avoid the risk of shortages or rationing. When confronted with our question as to the ethics and legality of his offer, he explained that he was a physician and had worked with the CDC and was confident he was acting in a morally and professionally correct manner – was he? For that matter, were the conference organizers in ethically troubling territory?”
The full post can be found here.
Our post was directed at Dan Brock, the Director of the Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health.
Herewith (and with permission) is Dr. Brock’s response:
“If your description of what transpired is accurate, then the action of offering an Rx for Tamiflu to all the attendees at this meeting was in my view clearly unethical, and essentially for the reasons you and Randy Cohen cite. Physicians should not be writing prescriptions for persons who are not their patients, nor should they be encouraging others to stockpile a potentially scarce drug. Why the organizers of this event permitted it I have no idea, nor do I know who they were.
You ask what can I do about this. The answer is probably not much, and that is not because I do not believe that what you describe as transpiring was not wrong. But neither of the two ethics programs at Harvard that I direct put them or me in the role of "ethics police" for everything that goes on connected with Harvard Medical School. The obvious parties with whom a complaint should initially be lodged are the organizers of the event who apparently permitted this to go on at the meeting.
If the physician offering the prescriptions was a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty then a complaint could also be lodged with the medical school. HMS has procedures for responding to allegations of faculty misconduct, but neither I nor my programs are involved in that process. I agree that an investigation of the matter is appropriate and one or both of these parties should be in a position to do so.”
Senator Grassley – how about an investigation?
