Grassley Wants Payment Data From AMA & Others
17 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // December 7th, 2009 // 6:19 pm
As part of an ongoing probe into conflicts of interest, the Senate Finance Committee’s Chuck Grassley has sent letters to the American Medical Association, the American Cancer Society and 31 other medical advocacy groups for details about the money they and their board members received from drug and device makers, The New York Times reports (see list below).
Such funding is often considered proprietary, but critics contend the influence leads them to lobby on behalf of industry, the Times writes. An AMA spokesman tells the paper industry funding comprised less than 2 percent of its budget (see AMA letter) and an American Cancer Society spokesman wrote the Times to say it “holds itself to the highest standards of transparency and public accountability, and we look forward to working with Senator Grassley to provide the information he requested.”
A recent example involved NAMI, or the National Alliance on Mental Illness, where industry funds accounted for more than half its budget. NAMI recently vowed to accept less industry funding (see here) and Richard Lamb, a board member, resigned (in photo at right).
Lamb joined the NAMI board in 2005, when he was “shocked to learn that approximately half of NAMI’s income comes from the large pharmaceutical companies,” he wrote in an Oct. 9, 2009, resignation letter that Grassley obtained. NAMI officials assured Lamb this would change, Lamb wrote, “however, very little has changed, right up to the present day.” (to see letter, click here and scroll down).
In an interview with the Times, Lamb says NAMI’s dependence on drugmakers made some actions impossible. For instance, he says NAMI should consider warning against the use of some mental health drugs with life-threatening side effects, but the organization could not consider such a move since doing so could threaten much of its funding. Michael Fitzpatrick, NAMI’s executive director, promised industry’s share of its fundraising would drop significantly next year.
The paper notes Grassley’s request that such groups organizations provide details about outside income of board members may cause some a ruckus. A few large patient advocacy groups have provided general guidance about their reliance on industry, but almost none has given such details about their leaders.
Grassley wrote these groups:
AAOS
Alzheimer’s Association
AAAAI
American Academy of Dermatology
American Academy of Family Physicians
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American College of Surgeons
American Dental Association
American Diabetes Association
American Dietetic Association
American Heart Association
American Hospital Association Inc.
American Medical Association
American Psychological Association
American Society of Anesthesiologists
American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons
American Society of Consultant Pharmacists
American Society of Health –System Pharmacists
American Society of Hypertension, Inc.
American Society of Nephrology
American Society of Plastic Surgeons
CHADD
DBSA
Heart Rhythm Society
Mental Health America
NARSAD
National Association of Chain Drug Stores
NORD
NASS
Screening for Mental Health Inc.
TeenScreen
The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
American Cancer Society
gina
About time. Will be very interesting to see what comes of this.
This dr. Lamb did the right thing leaving NAMI
mark phd
If you read the letter. Senator Grassley wants to know about insurance money as well.
Jim
if you read the letter Grassley asks about insurance money as well.
Fed Up
What a total waste of time, perhaps Iowa voters will wake up that this senator is out of control. Perhaps he should consider retirement.
pharmapro
decent inquiry by the senator.
doctor p
As a medical practitioner I am disgusted by the way Big Pharma has hijacked the research and medical eduation agenda. You simply cannot trust what you read anymore. Conflicts of interest are everywhere. The profession is starting to clean up its act and get out of Big Pharma’s bed - but there’s a long way to go. Grassley’s work has been excellent at helping initiate these needed changes in the direction of true medical science and patient welfare. We are all patients from time to time - it is in all our interests!
patrons99
Well said, doctor p!
Pharma has hijacked a once honorable and respected profession. Drug development and drug marketing are completely corrupt. CME and medical practice guidelines are completed biased and unreliable. Little, if any, of the published medical literature over the last 20 years can be trusted. It’s not too late, however, to turn things around and retake our profession from the usurpers. I applaud Grassley’s work. There is so much work that needs to be done.
Takes22Tango
The profession sold itself to the highest bidder. Most docs are not on the take. But there are no shortage of those who are.
It is their own responsibility.
Paul
I also want to see disclosures by:
- Government officials when they get free trips and junkets to other countries for “exchange visits”
- Government officials when they refer their girlfriends for key jobs without disclosing that they are their girlfriends (e.g. Bauchus)
- Editors of medical journals and the grants they receive from critics organizations and generics companies
- Physician practices when they get kickbacks for referring patients to certain hospitals
- Doctors who get kickbacks for referring patients to high-cost/dubious value diagnostic tests that are not reimbursed (cash payments) like coronary calcium scores.
harpy
Start lobbying, Paul. You’ve set yourself quite an agenda.
taller yet today
who were the other 31 organizations?
Elaine
Is AAP on the list?
Evelyn Pringle
Grassley’s on a roll and it looks like he won’t stop until he exposing it all. Great work!
I hope he publishes the pay and compensation packages the CEOs and other top dogs in these “charity” groups take home too.
The ones I was able to dig up in IRS filings were outrageous!
Biotruth
Grassley is spot-on. These inquiries have been long overdue. Many physicians are just as culpable as the pharma companies for feeding at the bottomless trough and perpetuating the kick-back culture over time.
There are still many excellent and valuable med ed programs out there. But yes, the flavor, slant, and “influence” can reek at many med ed venues. Much of this will begin to change in the coming year per the new med ed guidelines.
There is another topic of concern that gets far less press. It is the influence of pharma money and the conduct of human clinical trials. Perhaps this should be Grassley’s next crusade(?).
The average person is clueless that their loved one’s “luck” in being accepted into a clinical trial for cancer treatment, etc. can also translate into money in someone’s white pockets. I’m talking about money that is above and beyond the nuts and bolts financially needed to cover the normal cost of overhead - support staff, supplies, etc.
Prime examples: the big buck bonuses (cash or even stocks)for securing IRB approval, for meeting enrollment deadlines, and for meeting enrollment numbers or exceeding them (so-called “over-enrollment”); the per-participant payments and “finders fees” ($$ paid out to the MD/facility for signing up each patient); pharma setting up structure so that the research sites actually *compete against each other* to meet a defined patient recruitment goal (those sites that fail to retain enough patients per timeframe may even be dropped form the clinical study, therefore losing their chance at the clinical trial bucks).
For details about such clinical trial hijinks, see page 11 and the rest of the recent Nov. 2009 white paper entitled “Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Trial Recruitment and Enrollment: A Call for Increased Oversight. Page 11 is especially noteworthy. The pdf is accessible at the link:
http://law.shu.edu/ProgramsCenters/HealthTechIP/upload/health_center_whitepaper_nov2009.pdf
patrons99
Yes, Biotruth. Clinical research with human subjects reeks to high Heaven, and it has done so for quite some time.
An illustrative example is the Borison/Diamond research scandal in Augusta, GA for which Richard L. Borison, M.D. pled guilty to 36 criminal charges of theft, false statements and violation of the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. Dr. Borison was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by 15 years’ probation, fined $125,000, ordered to pay $4.26 million in restitution, and debarred by the FDA. He was released in 2008 after serving about 10 years in prison.
There are many such examples. There have been some extremely egregious violations of the Nuremberg Code and Declaration of Helinski over the last 2 decades. It’s a veritable rogue’s gallery of moral terpitude. The public doesn’t have a clue as to the degree of corruption.
patrons99
Addendum:
Clinical research in this country is a river of corruption that runs wide and deep and extends from coast to coast. What is a common thread? The ghost-written research publications. The fraudulent pharma-sponsored clinical research is quite often linked by the ghost-written publications. There’s an enormous paper trial of these publications on the internet, which at this point will be very difficult to hide. When multiple joint malfeasors show up on the same “research” publication, you must soon conclude that they are not isolated Black Swan Events. There’s a pattern to the serial related research frauds. Black swans do not appear in patterns. Clinical research fraud has not being aggressively prosecuted. Yes, some notorious cases have been fully prosecuted, but not many of them. Why not? Because to aggressively prosecute “high-enrollers”, who routinely conducted dozens of research studies simultaneously, for research fraud, would result in the need for FDA to retract the fraudulent clinical research upon which expedited market approvals of multiple new drugs were granted under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (“PDUFA”).
taller yet today
33 groups… they must be losing it