ACSH Trustee Dr. Thomas Stossel offered yesterday morning's readers of the Denver Post a timely editorial on the controversy over professional relationships and contacts among drug researchers. Dr. Stossel, an American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine and a director at Harvard University Medical School, is concerned about proposed changes in the rules governing relationships with industry of University of Colorado faculty.
He writes:
Since...I entered the medical profession over 45 years ago, patient care has improved immensely — almost entirely because of tools and treatments now available to physicians and derived from collaborations between physicians and private industry. Unfortunately, a movement spearheaded by a small group of well-connected activists, and abetted by media outlets seeking splashy headlines and by demagogue politicians, coined the pejorative term "conflict of interest" and is dedicated to eliminating or harshly regulating such collaboration. This movement alleges that physician-industry relationships are corrupt — that they supposedly increase medical costs, bias medical education and alarm the public.
Sadly the allegations invert reality.
We commend the whole op-ed to our readers.