Back in October I wrote an article about doctors getting paid to market drugs…you can read the article here.
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In this article I talk about Eli Lilly releasing data on how much money they pay Doctors to talk about their drugs. I applauded them for it, and continue to do so.
It appears that Harvard Medical School (HMS) is sensitive to this issue as well. Could they possibly be reading this blog…OK c’mon I can dream can’t I??
HMS recently passed rules that will prohibit its 11,000 faculty from giving promotional talks for drug and medical device makers and accepting personal gifts, travel, or meals, under a new policy intended partly to guard against companies’ use of Harvard’s prestige to market their products.
Now that is cool, they don’t want to be using their great name to promote stuff, however, the article got even better.
The new rules will begin at the start of 2011 and will go a long way to keeping doctors from being looked at as marketers. Dr. Robert Mayer who is on the committee that wrote the policy stated, “We’re anxious to be viewed publicly as doing what’s in the best interest of our patients.’’
I cannot tell you how happy that statement makes me.
Harvard is allowing the doctors to continue working with companies in research type setting which is vitally important to furthering medical discoveries. What Harvard is no longer allowing is having the doctors work as paid speakers and they have capped the amount of money they can be paid to $10,000 for clinical trial work.
Again I would like to say congrats to Harvard Medical School for increasing the transparency between doctor and the drug companies.
If you would like to read the article in the Globe you can see it here.
