Re-Examining the Partnership Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Academic Medical Centers

The pharmaceutical industry has been a major source of funding for clinical trials conducted by investigators at academic medical centers. Those trials generate publications in peer-reviewed medical journals and provide the basis for independent medical education programs. Industry funding of such activities has long been a subject of debate, and in recent months that debate has intensified due to a series of unrelated events:

• the release of new recommendations on industry funding of medical education by an Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) task force;
  
• an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled "Impugning the Integrity of Medical Science — The Adverse Effects of Industry Influence"; and
  
• the publication of a draft guidance to the industry from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the distribution of medical journal articles on unapproved new uses of approved drugs.

This teleconference will examine this debate in light of these three events.