Attention NIH - one hundred signatures

One hundred researchers, clinicians, and ethicists have signed a letter asking NIH to fund research on medical ethics, conflicts of interest, and industry influence on prescribing behavior. Stimulus funds have increased the NIH budget by ten billion dollars, but NIH has no mechanism for funding research on how commercial interests affect the choice of medical therapeutics.

The letter is sponsored by PharmedOut (http://pharmedout.org/), a Georgetown University Medical Center project that educates physicians about industry influence on prescribing. It is downloadable from http://www.pharmedout.org/NIHLetter.pdf .

Signers include Virginia Barbour MD, Chief Editor of PLoS Medicine, Jerome Kassirer, MD, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, Jerry Avorn MD, the Harvard physician who invented academic detailing, Kay Dickersin PhD, Director of the U.S. Cochrane Center, and Susan Wood, PhD, former head of the FDA Office of Women’s Health Research, who resigned over political influence regarding FDA decisions on the emergency contraceptive Plan B. Institutional signers include the Public Library of Science, the American Medical Student Association, the National Physicians Alliance, Consumers Union, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the National Women’s Health Network. The letter, sent to NIH today, is available at http://www.pharmedout.org/NIHLetter.pdf,