Fourteen medical specialty societies have signed a voluntary pledge to be more transparent in dealings with pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers and other for-profit companies in the health care field.
The pledge, issued by the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), was the result of at least a year of negotiations, said Dr. Allen S. Lichter, who is chair of the CMSS Task Force on Professionalism and Conflict of Interest and the chief executive officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
“CMSS is committed to encouraging and supporting a culture of integrity, voluntary self-regulation, and transparency,” said Dr. James H. Scully Jr., CMSS president and chief executive officer of the American Psychiatric Association. “This code provides a clear benchmark for maintaining integrity and independence.”
The 14 societies adopting the CMSS Code for Interactions with Companies agree to establish and publish conflict of interest policies as well as policies and procedures to ensure separation of program development from sponsor influence. They also must disclose corporate contributions and board members' financial relationships with companies, and prohibit financial relationships for key association leaders.
The initial signers included the American College of Physicians (ACP), American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), American Academy of Neurology (AAN), American College of Cardiology (ACC), Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), American College of Radiology (ACR), American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), and ASCO.
Dr. Daniel J. Ostergaard, the AAFP's vice president for professional activities, said that the CMSS code gives his organization a chance to see where it might improve its current policies on disclosure and ethical conflicts. He said that the AAFP has a long history of seeking to conduct itself ethically. “I feel very confident that my academy has always been addressing the issues pretty directly and with transparency,” Dr. Ostergaard said in an interview.
The AAFP's board members and counsel will spend the next few months determining how to bring its policies into compliance with the CMSS code, he added.
Adoption of the code will not impact the controversial alliance the AAFP struck with Coca-Cola in the fall of 2009 to conduct a consumer awareness campaign about beverages and sweeteners. Dr. Ostergaard said that the code related specifically to health-related companies and that Coca-Cola did not purport to be health related.
Dr. Lichter called the code a “very important milestone” because it will create consistency where there has been none. Many previous efforts to reduce conflicts have been done in private, but this effort is very much a public undertaking, designed to reassure the public and regulators that professional societies are acting ethically, Dr. Lichter said.
It is also, however, just a first step, he said. The code is not meant to be the last word; it represents a minimum set of guidelines. Some organizations may choose to be more restrictive, Dr. Lichter said.
According to the CMSS, the code was developed by a 30-member task force. More of the 32 CMSS members plan to adopt the code in the next few months.
The 25-page code is available on the CMSS Web site at www.cmss.org/codeforinteractions.aspx