Stanford to Ban Drug Makers’ Gifts for Doctors, Even Pens
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Stanford University Medical Center will prohibit its physicians from accepting even small gifts like pens and mugs from pharmaceutical sales representatives under a new policy intended to limit industry influence on patient care and doctor education. The new policy, which the medical center is expected to announce today, is part of a small but growing movement among academic medical centers. Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, have announced similar policies. “We want to secure the public trust to value what happens in academic medicine,” Dr. Philip A. Pizzo, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, said in an interview. He said the new policy would cost the medical center millions of dollars a year in industry support, like free meals that would now be largely prohibited. “Many faculty members and departments have become dependent on sponsored meals from industry in order to run seminars,” he said. The new policy, which takes effect Oct. 1, would also prohibit doctors from accepting free drug samples and from publishing articles in medical journals that are ghost-written by industry contractors. The policy would also apply to sales representatives from makers of medical devices and other companies, not just pharmaceutical companies. Company representatives would be barred from areas where patient treatment and doctor education occur, with some exceptions. Doctors buying medical equipment would have to report any financial relationships with equipment suppliers and could be excluded from the decision-making, the university said. The move is part of a reaction against corporate influence on medicine at a time of growing concern over the safety and rising cost of drugs and medical devices. About 90 percent of the pharmaceutical industry’s $21 billion marketing budget is directed at physicians, according to an article by an influential group of doctors, scientists and lawyers in The Journal of the American Medical Association in January. More : nytimes.com |