DiagnosticsAmerican Medical Student Association Rejects New Organization Dedicated To Limiting Conflict Of Interest Regulation
The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) rejects the objectives of the Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE), a newly formed organization that seeks to limit conflict of interest regulations. AMSA, the nation"s oldest and largest, independent association for physicians-in-training, is calling on the medical profession to continue to reduce the influence of pharmaceutical and medical device industry promotional activities, which research has proven to negatively affect patient care.
"ACRE is truly behind the times," says Lauren Hughes, MD, MPH, AMSA national president. "Conflict of interest policies seek to provide balanced, ethical relationships between physicians and industry in order to develop the best, safest medicines for the public."
"As a national leader of AMSA and a member of my university"s pharmaceutical conflict of interest committee, I attended the inaugural ACRE meeting to broaden my perspective on this issue," says Nitin Roper, fourth year medical student at the University of Connecticut. "However, I was disappointed to find that the majority of the speakers failed to acknowledge that conflicts of interest even exist. Denying the existence of real ethical concerns does not help our profession move toward greater innovation in patient care-it impairs it."
ACRE held its first annual meeting last week at Brigham & Women"s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. According to the ACRE Website, "under mounting pressure from interest groups, the media, and select government officials, academic medical centers have begun adopting restrictive conflict of interest policies that often sever productive relationships between industry and physicians involved in clinical research and educational outreach."
High-ranking healthcare organizations, such as the Institute of Medicine, Association of American Medical Colleges, American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association-Council of Ethical and Judicial Affairs have called on medical professionals to reject gifts of any size and limit interactions with sales representatives. AMSA has and will continue to align with these organizations and work toward the development of balanced, ethical conflict of interest policies that guide medical education.
As the organization leading the PharmFree movement, AMSA strongly advocates against marketing-based prescribing practices because the research continually shows that by eliminating the gifts and the misleading information that drug reps currently bring into our schools, hospitals and academic medical centers, we will be able to better care for our patients. For more information on the AMSA PharmFree Campaign, please visit www.pharmfree.org.
American Medical Student Association