Medical Societies Paid To Do Corporate Public Relations

Background

Last year we posted about how two medical societies which received funding from a drug manufacturer tried to persuade the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to deny approval of a generic competitor to one of that company's products.  The medical societies were the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) and the North American Thrombosis Forum (NATF).  The company was Sanofi-Aventis and the product involved was its anti-coagulant derivative of heparin, Lovenox.

At the time, we noted that the SHM CEO denied the need to specifically disclose funding from Sanofi-Aventis in the letter to the FDA, since he asserted the letter was about "providing the best, most effective care to the hospitalized patient." If so, I wondered why the SHM had not raised concerns about the case of the deadly contaminated heparin which was sold by another company from which it received support.  I noted that as long as medical societies accepted money from companies that made drugs or devices their members might prescribe or use, there would be "suspicion that such societies may use their considerable influence to serve the corporations', not patients' interests, and so undermine the professional values of the societies' members."