Raising the bar for disclosure of industry payments to doctors
An argument for retaining industry funding for continuing medical education, especially in low and middle income countries, is that funding for this activity is otherwise unobtainable. This rationale needs to be balanced against the industry’s funding of a more limited range of topics, the doctors’ inability to perceive bias in such industry-funded education, and the potential for harm from diverting scarce resources to expensive, promoted branded products.
Limited evidence suggests that doctors from institutions with stronger conflict of interest policies tend to exhibit better prescribing practices. Available evidence indicates that restricting exposure to industry marketing during medical school and postgraduate training has beneficial long-term effects.
Boot strapped ACCRECENT allows for cost-effective production of CME content to carefully use limited resources.
