Pharmaceutical industry influence over the information doctors receive in the classroom has more than tripled in the last decade, to $1.2 billion, making it hard to determine whether medical professionals are learning science or getting fed marketing gimmicks, doctors and health professionals told a Senate panel Wednesday.
In a practice called Continuing Medical Education, or CME, doctors take classes and training courses to stay current on the best ways to treat patients. Many states and hospitals require doctors to take such classes. The problem, as Congress and some health professionals see it, is that the pharmaceutical industry now funds more than half these courses, at the pace of $1.2 billion a year.
"CME has become an insidious vehicle for the aggressive promotion of drugs and medical devices," said Dr. Steve Nissen, a cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic who is best known for first raising concerns about heart attacks associated with the blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia.
Lewis Morris, chief counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, said there are numerous examples where companies have used CME courses to promote off-label uses of their products, which is illegal.
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