AMSA Commends Regulations Prohibiting Pharmaceutical Influence

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: Flu / Cold / SARS
Article Date: 29 Sep 2004 - 18:00 PDT

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The American Medical Student Association (AMSA), the nation's largest, independent medical student organization, commends yesterday's announcement from the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to limit the influence of physicians who receive pharmaceutical company funding. According to The 2004 Updated ACCME Standards for Commercial Support: Standards to Ensure the Independence of CME Activities, the regulations are effective immediately.

AMSA believes that practicing physicians should maintain an independent financial posture vis-à-vis the pharmaceutical industry to avoid conflicts of interests in prescribing for and treating their patients.

AMSA applauds the ACCME for enacting these regulations. By limiting the influence of physicians with financial connections to drug companies, the medical community is acting responsibly to help insure that prescribing decisions are made based on the best available medical evidence. With this action, the ACCME joins the ranks of the National Institutes of Health, which recently announced a proposal to ban all pharmaceutical industry collaborations by its staff.

As the only medical organization to ban all pharmaceutical marketing in its publications and events, AMSA has long been educating medical students on the industry's biased marketing practices. In 2002, AMSA developed the PharmFree Campaign in collaboration with No Free Lunch and Dr. Bob Goodman, to educate and train medical students to professionally and ethically interact with the pharmaceutical industry. On December 8, 2004, AMSA will recognize the first annual National PharmFree Day.

Kim Becker, Director of Public Relations
American Medical Student Association
Phone: (703) 620-6600, ext. 207
Email: prel@www.amsa.org
http://www.amsa.org/news/pr/04/0929.cfm