Comments on: Key Opinion Leaders in medicine are paid to have an opinion

By: devil's advocate

devil's advocate — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 22:02:32 +0000

You’re right and the closest I can think of is Independent Financial Advisors, who can no longer be paid by their industry (costing individuals more). With the end user being separate from the payer and from the prescriber, is there even another industry that we can compare to?

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sat, 22 Mar 2014 12:56:07 +0000

Thanks for your comment. In any other field, we would simply never allow this practice as it exists when doctors are on the take from industry. Sports referees don’t take money from team owners. Judges don’t take money from defendants’ lawyers. Professionals are not allowed to profit financially when a clear conflict of interest exists – why would we think physicians and other drug prescribers should get away with this? Side note: the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline has announced it will no longer pay docs to help sell their products, following the massive bribery scandal in its China operations.

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By: devils advocate

devils advocate — Sat, 22 Mar 2014 12:38:11 +0000

Don’t patients want the latest medicines? If drug rep activity and paying doctors to speak increases prescriptions, then that is more patients being treated. Not always a good thing, e.g. statins, but sometimes is, e.g. cancer drugs.

As long as doctors compare the options (Let’s assume all published research is equally biased, for simplicity) after a drug rep visit, as a patient, I am fine with that. People learn differently (visual, auditory, auditory-digital), right?

Saying that, I wouldn’t be happy with unethical marketing by drug reps and its a lot harder to monitor than, say, advertising.

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By: Dr. John Briffa

Dr. John Briffa — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 15:04:33 +0000

[…] recent times, some have started to ask questions about the ethics surrounding the use of KOLs. See here for what I think is a good blog post that highlights the major issues and provides commentary from […]

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By: Dr Joe Today

Dr Joe Today — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 02:38:03 +0000

[…] The original article appears here […]

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By: Becoming not Became

Becoming not Became — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 03:55:47 +0000

[…] Key Opinion Leaders in medicine are paid to have an opinion (ethicalnag.org) […]

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By: Peter's Space

Peter's Space — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 16:03:51 +0000

[…] Key Opinion Leaders in medicine are paid to have an opinion (ethicalnag.org) […]

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 12:50:34 +0000

Thanks for sharing your perspective, Dr. Joe. This is indeed what your Australian countryman Dr. Peter Parry and his U.S. colleague Dr. Glen Spielmans reported in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry: “While evidence-based medicine is a noble ideal, marketing-based medicine is the current reality.” Pretty frightening if you’re a patient…

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By: Dr. Joe Kosterich

Dr. Joe Kosterich — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 12:28:14 +0000

Yes this is a major problem in medicine. When we combine this with ghostwriting and no publishing of “negative” studies, it gets worse. Plus the recent review which showed 12 out of 14 panel heads on committees to do with disease definition and treatments had conflicts of interest.

And the humble GP (family physician) is castigated for daring to question the “best practice” that money can buy.

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By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 05:51:33 +0000

Though the fact that such a large proportion do not disclose (or did not in the study) argues that they are at least uneasy about appearances. Resentful, perhaps, that others might make a judgment they would consider completely inappropriate, but uneasy enough to lie about it.

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:38:24 +0000

Thank you Mark – what a joy it is to hear from docs like you. Besides ProPublica’s Dollars For Docs site, another resource to check who’s taking money from industry is the Integrity in Science project funded by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

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