Event - No Academic Medical Center Left Behind

See press release below:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-April 21, 2008Contact: Jack Rusley, Chair of AMSA Culture of Medicine CommitteePhone: (401) 447-2892Email: jack_rusley@brown.edu
HOSPITALS URGED TO BAN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY INFLUENCE
Ex-Drug Rep, Policy Expert and Medical Students Call for Comprehensive Conflict of Interest Policy at RI Hospitals and Alpert Medical School

Providence, RI – Shahram Ahari, former drug rep for Eli Lily, and Allan Coukell, policy director for the Prescription Project, will speak on the conflicts of interest between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical and device industries and call for strict regulations against the intrusion of industry influence into doctor’s offices, medical school classrooms, and hospitals. They will offer the same lecture to three different audiences on April 22 at Rhode Island Hospital’s George Auditorium from 10-11:30 AM, Memorial Hospital’s Medical Staff Auditorium from 3:30-5 PM, and on the Brown campus in the Life Sciences Building Auditorium from 6-7:30 PM.

“The ethics of medicine—promoting the best interests of patients—and the ethics of business—profitability—are both legitimate, but we in medicine must pay attention to where they diverge and where they fuse and become confused,” says Jay Baruch, M.D, ER physician and director of the ethics curriculum at Alpert Medical School.

Contact with sales representatives or acceptance of industry support leads to increased prescribing of the funders’ products and decreased use of cheaper, generic medications, according to articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). [1],[2] Another JAMA study reveled that physicians who accept company gifts may feel a need, subconscious or otherwise, to reciprocate. Even small gifts—pens, mugs, and meals—influence behavior.[3]

Medical schools across the country, including Boston University, Yale University, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Connecticut, have adopted policies banning pharmaceutical industry influence on campuses, in hospitals and in research facilities. Currently, Alpert Medical School has a limited conflict of interest policy that does not include clinical faculty, medical students, residents, or fellows.

The lectures are organized by the Brown University-Alpert Medical School chapter of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) in conjunction with the Brown Pharm Policy Task Force, a group of medical students working to create a conflict of interest policy at Alpert and its affiliated hospitals in Rhode Island.

AMSA is the oldest and largest independent association of physicians-in-training in the United States. Founded in 1950, AMSA is a student-governed, non-profit organization committed to representing the concerns of physicians-in-training. With approximately 40,000 members, including medical and premedical students, residents and practicing physicians, AMSA is committed to improving medical training as well as advancing the profession of medicine. To learn more about AMSA please visit us online at www.amsa.org.

[1] Wazana A. Physcians and the pharmaceutical industry: Is a gift ever just a gift? JAMA. 2000;283:373-380.
[2] Chren MM, Landenfeld CS. Physicians’ behavior and their interactions with drug companies. A controled study of physicians who requested additions to a hospital drug formulary. JAMA. 1994;271-684-689.
[3] Dana J, Lowenstein G. A social science perspective on gifts to physicians from industry. JAMA. 2003;290:252-255.