Harvard Set To Strengthen Conflict-of-Interest Policies At Medical School, Affiliated Hospitals

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice;  Medical Devices / Diagnostics;  Pharma Industry / Biotech Industry
Article Date: 04 Feb 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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Harvard Medical School plans to fortify its conflict-of-interest rules for physicians and researchers, the Boston Globe reports. The move comes amid a U.S. Senate investigation of several faculty members and a new Massachusetts law that will publicize certain payments physicians receive from medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

Harvard Medical School has been criticized over its conflict-of-interest policy. The American Medical Student Association gave Harvard an 'F' on its conflict-of-interest policy because it does not address company gifts or meals. Also, a group of students last year succeeded in making a new policy requiring lecturers, faculty members and visiting professors to reveal financial interests in a company or treatment they discuss. Students say current enforcement of the policy is "spotty," according to the Globe.

The school's current policy focuses on limiting research conflicts by enforcing certain practices such as barring faculty or family members from holding more than $30,000 worth of stock in publicly traded companies or any equity in privately held companies that sponsor their research. In addition, faculty and family cannot receive more than $20,000 a year in consulting or other fees. The policy also requires physicians to account for their relationships with companies on paper. Harvard's teaching hospitals -- including Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women's and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-- have separate conflict-of-interest rules from Harvard Medical School, despite some overlap.

According to Jeffrey Flier, dean of the medical school, a 19-member committee will review the entire policy, a process that could take a year. He said that the policy is reviewed regularly and that the current review was not prompted by the Senate investigation or the new state law. Flier said the committee likely will focus on the area of continuing medical education because drug companies pay about 13% of the cost of the several hundred courses for doctors each year sponsored by the medical school. Pharmaceutical companies currently do not influence course content, according to Flier.

The Globe reports that top medical schools at Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Francisco and University of Massachusetts have adopted stricter policies over the course of the last two years. However, David Korn, Harvard's vice provost for research, who is in charge of the review of the university's conflict-of-interest policy, said the university has a bigger challenge than other schools because the medical school does not own or control its affiliated teaching hospitals and more clinical faculty are employees of the hospitals than the medical school (Kowalczyk, Boston Globe, 2/3).

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