A new ethics code announced by dozens of leading medical groups on Wednesday aims to stop allowing industry to help pay for developing medical guidelines, place new restrictions on consulting deals, and ban pens with drug company names or other swag from medical conferences.
The new codes are aimed at limiting the influence that drug and device makers have over patient care.
The Council of Medical Specialty Societies took the move to curb conflict of interest, which is a growing concern as private industry bankrolls a great share of medical research.
The council includes 32 medical societies with 650,000 members, consisting of neurologists and obstetricians to family doctors and pediatricians. They include the American College of Physicians, the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the largest group of cancer specialist in the world.
“We take very seriously the trust that is placed in us by physicians and patients to be authoritative, independent voices in cancer care,” ASCO’s chief, Dr. Allen Lichter, said in a statement. He led the panel that developed the code.
One of the most controversial rules laid out requires top leaders of any medical society and top editors of its journals to have no consulting deals or financial ties to industry.
“When a physician stands up to represent medicine and his or her specialty, there shouldn’t be any confusion as to who they’re speaking for,” said Dr. Norman Kahn, the council’s chief executive and a former rural medicine doctor from California.
Fourteen groups in the council, including ASCO and the College of Physicians, have already took on the code as their own. Most of the rest plan to follow suit by the end of the year.
Leading medical journals agreed to use a uniform conflict-of-interest disclosure form last year for researchers publishing in their journals. Kahn said the new ethics code the council is adopting should make financial ties more transparent to patients while breeding professionalism and trust in doctors.
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