A new PLoS Medicine study from Jerry Avorn’s shop at Harvard concludes that:
Undergraduate medical education provides substantial contact with pharmaceutical marketing, and the extent of such contact is associated with positive attitudes about marketing and skepticism about negative implications of these interactions. These results support future research into the association between exposure and attitudes, as well as any modifiable factors that contribute to attitudinal changes during medical education.
This won’t be news to the American Medical Students Association, which has a campaign called “”https://www.pharmfree.org/">Pharma Free
."
Here’s what they call for:
Comprehensive conflict-of-interest policies: PharmFree helps students advocate for, develop, and implement strong industry-relations policies at their academic medical centers. Our annual PharmFree Scorecard evaluates and grades the conflict-of-interest policies at every US medical school in a variety of domains. Visit www.amsascorecard.org for more information
Legislative solutions: PharmFree lobbies for legislation at the state and federal level that increases the transparency of industry relationships, reduces conflicts of interest, promotes evidence-based practice, and increases global access to essential medicines.
Global access: PharmFree seeks to educate medical students on the the issue of access to medicines. Specifically, AMSA seeks to connect the market-driven practices of pharmaceutical companies to both domestic issues (conflicts of interest, marketing) and global issues (access to medicines, neglected disease research).
PharmFree Curricula: PharmFree has developed a Model PharmFree Curriculum for teaching about drug development, marketing and conflict of interest. PharmFree is also currently developing resources to assist faculty and staff looking to make these changes at their schools, including a menu of ready-made lectures/slides and other materials, as well as a list of faculty across the country who are willing to consult on curricular development.