Three Big Pharma companies donated $700,000 to a medical society that used most of the money on a series of dinner lectures last year to brief doctors on the latest news about high blood pressure.
The same three companies — Merck, Novartis and Sankyo — also gave the money that the medical society used to formulate the main talking point of those briefings, an expanded concept of high blood pressure that many doctors say would increase the number of people taking drugs.
The seven dinners at Ruth's Chris Steak Houses around the country are just one example of why the small medical society, the American Society of Hypertension, has been in the midst of a dispute over the influence of drug industry money.
"This is about the monetarization of medicine," Dr. Michael H. Alderman (pic), a past president of the organization, said in a recent interview.
After months of controversy within the American Society of Hypertension that included accusations of industry influence, the society's president, Dr. Thomas D. Giles, said yesterday that the group's leadership would be required to disclose more details about the money they receive from industry.
More here: NY Times
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