President's Page: Relations with industry: thoughts on claims of a broken system.

Responsibility is the key word. To assume that all physicians would act irresponsibly in relation to industry gifts or payments is inappropriate. n April 2009, an article written by a number of well-respected physicians appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (1). In the article, the authors recommended sweeping changes in how professional medical associations (PMAs), uch as the American College of Cardiology (ACC), should interact with pharmaceutial and medical device industries. Their recommendations included totally removing industry support of PMAs and olding officers of the PMAs accountable for avoiding any industry support. Their defiition of industry support included participation in Speakers’ Bureaus, industry-funded linical trials, or investigator-initiated research while serving as an officer of the society. The authors felt that advertising in medical journals was appropriate and did not reuire consideration, and industry grants to academic institutions were also considered cceptable. However, trainees receiving awards from foundations should not be allowed o acknowledge or even know the source of their funding, according to the authors. The authors proposed that the sole source for support of PMAs could only come rom government or foundation grants and that no society member who had any relaionship with industry could be appointed to a guideline committee. They also suported full disclosure and transparency regarding funding, and they called on the governent to fund any clinical trials needed to provide evidence-based guidelines for care. These recommendations assume that we all are easily influenced by relations with inustry and need to be regulated; there is no comment about trust or virtue as a characeristic of the medical profession. The article implies that all physicians who receive suport from industry will forever be biased to support the products of the related harmaceutical or device company. It also implies that industry does not work for the est interests of patients or the better public good, but only for profit.