Thursday, September 14, 2006

No Free Lunch - Health Care Renewal rips Stanford a new one

Great post by Roy Poses.

So at Stanford, a junior faculty member will not be able to accept a coffee mug with the Wyeth logo, while a senior faculty member can serve on the board of directors of Wyeth.

Is it "doing the right thing" to prohibit minor conflicts of interest affecting mainly trainees and junior faculty, while letting senior faculty and administrators preserve their large conflicts of interest?

What sort of hypocritical "standard" does it set to prohibit junior faculty from being influenced by pens and coffee mugs when making clinical decisions, but allowing senior faculty to be influenced by five-figure consulting income, and seven-figure stock option holding when writing papers, speaking to national audiences, and teaching trainees?

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