The Shame of CME -- Part II

A few weeks ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association carried an excellent overview of industry influence in continuing medical education, which I wrote about here.

This past weekend's edition of The Cancer Letter (subscription required) carried the latest scandal to hit the field. Last year, that muckraking publication revealed that a prominent lung cancer researcher, in an article that appeared in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, had failed to disclose a number of granted and pending patents, including one licensed to General Electric, that involved interpreting CT scans in lung cancer patients. The article, which received widespread coverage in the mainstream media, claimed that using CT scans could dramatically increase the number of people who survive a diagnosis of the disease. I wrote about the specious claims in that article here.

Sound like the patent was relevant to the subject being discussed in the article? Well, last month, after receiving a complaint from a public interst group and an inquiry from The Cancer Letter, the NEJM editors deemed the patents “not relevant” and refused to print a correction.

Now, a follow-up investigation by the publication has uncovered numerous instances when Weill Medical College researcher Claudia Henschke failed to disclose the patents in a series of continuing medical education (CME) seminars, including one held by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) a month after the article appeared in October 2006. The NEJM article could also be read for CME credit.

The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education in 2005 adopted strict rules for disclosing granted and pending patents held by any presenter at a CME activity. As Murray Kopelow, the chief executive of ACCME, told The Cancer Letter, "royalties by themselves establish the financial relationship of the person with a commercial interest and create the potential for conflict of interest. Therefore, the relationship is relevant in CME.”

The Center for Science in the Public Interest later this week will ask the ACCME to order all the CME providers where Henschke failed to disclose to send proper disclosures to anyone who participated in those activities. Meanwhlie, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) says he plans to launch a Congressional inquiry into physician patenting activity. “It’s becoming clear that patents and royal payments to doctors deserve a lot more scrutiny from Congress, the FDA, professional journals and other watchdogs,” Grassley said.