Posted on 07/31/2009 6:36:13 AM PDT by To-Whose-Benefit?
At yesterday's United States Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing on "Medical Research and Education: Higher Learning or Higher Earning?", most of the testimony focused on pharma industry support of continuing medical education (CME). .....
...... With the billions of dollars of industry money flowing into CME, who is guarding the integrity of the CME process?," asked Nissen. "Current oversight by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) is largely ineffective. The ACCME has strict rules governing educational activities, but appears uninterested or incapable of enforcing them. I am unaware of any communications companies that have lost their accreditation because of biased CME."
"Maybe they don't have resources, maybe they do not have the will," said Nissen. "We need ACCME to go away." He said that while Murray Kopelow, CEO of ACCME, was sitting in the same small room!
"In recent years, CME has been increasingly used to conceal payments to physicians that would otherwise be disclosed by transparency rules at hospitals and medical schools," said Nissen. "Since the honorarium comes from a third party and is used to support CME, recipients are shielded from disclosure. Essentially, communications companies are used to 'launder' money to avoid disclosure." Speaking of money laundering, maybe Nissen read my post on the subject: "Welcome to the CME Laundromat!"
Read More at: Pharma Marketing Blog
(Excerpt) Read more at pharmamkting.blogspot.com ...
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