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Third-Party Vendors of Continuing Medical Education and Health Providers in Diabetes: A Deepening Conflict of Interest

	Introduction

 
"Dear Doctor: You are invited to attend the annual clinical update on.... To attend this meeting you must book your travel with.... Travel at least six weeks in advance.... Travel will offer you one itinerary. You must respond within 24 hours of receipt of the itinerary to request amendments to the itinerary. You will be offered a nonrefundable airline ticket that cannot be modified. After that, any further changes in the travel schedule must be made at your personal expense. Should you wish to change your travel at any time after the ticket has been issued, you will be required to pay any penalties and adjustments." (The bold print was in the original letter.)

I received this letter from a third-party vendor for a pharmaceutical company. The letter invited me to the pharmaceutical company’s annual scientific update about advances related to their diabetes-related product. I read the letter three times and put it aside. A few weeks later, I received a call from this vendor. The caller wanted to know why I had not responded to the invitation. I told her that my schedule did not allow me to accept travel on such stringent terms. As a practicing physician, I might have to suddenly alter my plans. "Well," she responded, "according the AMA guidelines, you should be required to pay for those changes yourself."

Diabetes has become a much more important business area for pharmaceutical companies over the past 10 years. This has led to rapid growth in the number of companies involved with this clinical discipline and in interactions between companies and diabetes health care professionals. As ethical questions regarding health care professionals’ interactions with pharmaceutical companies have increased over the past decade, the details of these interactions have become more regimented and regulated.

With more companies involved . . . [Full Text of this Article]

	AMA Guidelines

 

	Relevance of AMA Guidelines to Diabetes Care

 

	Potential for Abuse

 

	Summary

 

	Footnotes

 

	REFERENCES

 

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This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. B. Leichter The Coming Crisis in Continuing Education in Diabetes: Resolvable Issues and Novel Solutions Clin. Diabetes, January 1, 2005; 23(1): 6 - 8. [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. B. Leichter Continuing Medical Education in Diabetes: The Impending Crisis Clin. Diabetes, October 1, 2004; 22(4): 174 - 177. [Full Text] [PDF]