Monday, March 16, 2009

When I agree with Daniel Carlat

---it’s noteworthy. He recently wrote:

Industry funding of accredited CME is on its way into the dustbin of medical history…

Indeed it is at the rate things are going now. The vast majority of practicing docs want support to continue but don’t have the organization or the passion to raise their collective voice.

Later in the same post, citing a non accredited promotional activity, he noted:

Is this the kind of promotional education that will replace industry sponsored CME? Probably.


Right again. If support is banned you can strike the word “probably.” It’s exactly what I said in our recent Medscape Roundtable on this subject:

If pharmaceutical companies were banned from spending money on accredited CME, those funds would, in all likelihood, be spent on marketing. Physicians would be bombarded by even more information from industry, but in the absence of the safeguards and quality standards of accredited CME.

This would mean a loss of many high quality accredited programs and a big spike in purely promotional activities. Not a good thing.

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