The Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami is the latest institution to scrutinize the financial relationships between academic researchers and the pharmaceutical industry. The school is now offering an online database in which to search for payments doctors receive from drugmakers and others. All you have to do is type in the name of the person or company (see here).

The database will be updated at least once a year and currently includes data only for the university’s fiscal 2009 year, which ended last May 31. For now, the actual amounts of money involved are not posted, but the school says that info will gradually be added later this year.

“We’ve taken a strong stand in favor of transparency,” Richard Bookman, UM’s executive dean for research and training, tells The Miami Herald. “Having something like this is the right thing to do.”

The healthcare reform bill contains a provision known as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which requires drug and device makers must disclose payments of more than $10 to physicians and teaching hospitals. Yesterday, Pfizer joined Lilly, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline in publishing web sites containing various forms of this sort of info.