Continuing Medical Education Deserves More Scrutiny: Study

At a time when increasing scrutiny is applied to funding for continuing medical education, a new study notes that relatively little is known about medical communications companies – the for-profit businesses that exist to provide physicians with up-to-date clinical and scientific information. And the study authors suggest that there is good reason to take a closer at these so-called MCCs. Why? For one thing, 14 drug and device makers provided MCCs with more funds than any other type of entity, including academic medical centers, professional associations and research organizations – MCCs received 26 percent of all funding, or nearly $171 million. And for-profit MCCs received 77 percent of industry grants to all MCCs. The top recipient was Medscape/WebMD, which received more than $20 million, or 12 percent of all such grants. The authors reviewed more than 19,000 grants that were made to 6,493 recipients, who received more than $657 million from industry in 2010, which was the first year that 13 drugmakers and one device maker posted grant registries on their web sites. These disclosures came about, in some cases, due to legal settlements with authorities or voluntary decisions. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (here is the abstract). An accompany editorial cautioned such funding is problematic. “Medical communication companies’ reliance on industry funding highlights the importance of keeping promotion separate from education,...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs