Two Steps Back: International Council on Human Rights Policy Closes, Dutch Healthy Skepticism Ends Domestic Focus

We have noted the paucity of organized efforts to combat health care corruption and related phenomena.  What efforts exist tend to focus on corruption elsewhere, as if no one is willing to admit it can occur in their back yard.  Now one organization that has made some efforts in this sphere is closing, and another will explicitly focus its efforts on problems elsewhere.

International Council on Human Rights Policy Closes

The ICHRP was located in Geneva.  It had a wide focus, but was willing to consider how corruption could affect human rights.  Its publication, Corruption and Human Rights: Making the Connection, explicitly noted the threat of corruption to the right to health.  (Note that in international policy, this right is not considered to be to unlimited health care, but to "attainment of the highest available standard of physical and mental health.")  It went on to list a variety of ways in which government corruption, or corruption of health care leaders or organizations outside of government could harm health.  (Full disclosure: I participated in a meeting the IHCRP convened to review a draft of this publication.)

Now, as announced in the IHCRP blog, the IHCRP will close at the end of this month:

The decision to close was taken by the Executive Board primarily due to continued financial difficulties, largely a result of the difficult funding climate, especially for human rights and even more so for human rights policy research. It is especially regrettable because for more than a decade the ICHRP stimulated co-operation and exchange across the non-governmental, governmental and inter-governmental sectors, and strove to mediate between competing perspectives.

Healthy Skepticism in the Netherland to Only Focus on Problems "Abroad"

Today I got a press release (as of 21 February available here) from the Dutch Institute for Rational Use of Medicine (IVM), that stated:

The Dutch Institute for Rational Use of Medicine (IVM) is changing the course of its renowned Healthy Skepticism programme, which has critically monitored the pharmaceutical industry’s impact on the use of medication over the past ten years. Healthy Skepticism will be shifting attention away from its activities in the Netherlands, choosing to focus instead on supporting initiatives abroad.

The immediate reason seemed to be lack of funding, like the reason advanced for the closing of the ICHRP:

The change is prompted by the fact that the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport has eliminated funding for the programme....

The announcement first suggested that the change of focus came about because the initiative had attained its original goals:

another factor is the radical change that has occurred in the pharmaceutical industry’s attitude and conduct over the past decade.

Commenting on the change, IVM director Ruud Coolen van Brakel stated: 'Although there are still some problem areas, overall the industry has become more mature and more responsible’.

However, later in the announcement the implication was stronger that this lack of funding may have resulted from how the program challenged the powers that be, perhaps those who were personally profiting the most from the status quo:

The impact of Healthy Skepticism’s initiatives has not been unequivocally positive. IVM met with considerable resistance, which at times even became personal, and, because of its critical attitude, often became the target of aggressive attacks that also compromised its funders, the Ministry of Health, Education and Sport and the Healthcare Inspectorate.

Summary

We noted most recently (here, December, 2011) most of the organizations one might have expected would have provided some response to health care corruption instead have largely treated it as at best a nuisance. Specifically, there is almost no teaching or research on corruption in health care academics (including medical and public health schools, and programs in health care research and policy.)  There is almost no mention of corruption by health care professional associations.  There are almost no initiatives to fight corruption on the part of health care charities and donors.  There is almost no interest in corruption among patient advocacy organizations.  (See previous discussion here.)

Furthermore, I also postulated that at least in the US context, this lack of interest in corruption may partially be explained by these organizations' institutional conflicts of interest and the individual conflicts of interest affecting their leaders. It may be further explained by the exposure of some leaders to the irresponsible, if not amoral culture that now currently pervades finance, which may have in turn been one cause of the great recession, or global financial collapse.

The ICHRP and the Dutch Healthy Skepticism program seemed to be happy exceptions.  However, both of them depended on outside government or non-profit organizations for funding.  In both cases, these outside funders seem to have lost enthusiasm, maybe for reasons discussed above.

At least the ICHRP archives remain available, and Dutch Healthy Skepticism may be able to make some useful contribution outside the Netherlands.

There is increasing evidence that health care corruption may end up killing people.   I still hope that the courage of those who have tried to increase awareness of health care corruption, the conflicts of interest that can increase its likelihood, and surrounding phenomena, will not be in vain.  I still hope that some academic health care institutions, professional societies, health care charities and donors, and patient advocacy groups will gain enough fortitude to stand up for accountability, integrity, transparency, and honesty in health care.

Will the Freeze of the Global Fund Finally Put Health Care Corruption on the Agenda?

In February, 2011, we posted about problems with corruption affecting the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. At the time, the Fund promised to better detect fraud and corruption affecting its grants programs. We later posted about how after an internal debate, the Fund promised to make more information public about any losses to fraud and corruption.

Now it has made more such information public, but it also appears that further problems with corruption have lead to the freezing of the Fund.

The New Findings of Corruption

First, as reported by Bloomberg on 1 November,

A $22 billion disease-fighting fund backed by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) founder Bill Gates found that money intended for people with life-threatening illnesses was used for home renovations in India and diverted to a person linked with money laundering and so-called blood diamonds in Nigeria.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is seeking to recover as much as $19.2 million from grants in eight countries, the Geneva-based organization said in a set of reports today. As much as $1.3 million was misused by the head of a non-governmental AIDS organization in India to buy a car and renovate his apartment, one report said. In Nigeria, money was siphoned to a person arrested in 2003 for money-laundering and smuggling diamonds that are mined and sold to support war.

This amount was in addition to previous amounts disclosed before:

The organization said last year it was seeking the recovery of $44.2 million in four nations for 'grave misuse of funds.'

It is not clear how much money the Fund has lost to corruption in total. According to an AP report, via CBS News,

Earlier probes by the fund's internal watchdog, the inspector general's office, had detected about $53 million in losses, according to fund documents, some unpublished, provided by senior officials.

The fund's board chairman Simon Bland told The Associated Press it has now reviewed about one-seventh of $14 billion in grants disbursed.

Whether similar amounts of corruption affected the other six sevenths of grants is unclear.

The Freeze on Grants

This week, several reports that the Fund would stop funding new grants appeared in the media. As reported by BusinessWeek,

The world’s biggest disease-fighting fund canceled its next round of grants as the global financial crisis crimps donations and threatens its ability to curb the spread of the world’s deadliest infections.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has spent or committed to spending $22 billion since 2002 on preventing and treating disease, will only have enough money to pay for essential services for existing programs through the end of 2013, the Geneva-based fund said in a statement today. It will not make new grants until 2014,...

The reason for this freeze on grant making was,

The fund faces 'accelerating deterioration' in its finances for the next three years because of economic distress in donor nations, combined with corruption in some of the poor countries it helps,...

A NY Times article implied that one reason for the financial shortfall was that some donor nations withheld money due to their concerns about corruption:

Several countries, including Djibouti, Mali, Mauritania and Zambia, lost their grants or had new safeguards put in place after officials were accused of stealing. The Global Fund’s own inspector general exposed the fraud and earlier this month was trying to recover about $20 million that had been stolen; that amount is less than 1 percent of the $13 billion that has been disbursed.

There have been reports of friction between Dr. Kazatchkine and the inspector general, John Parsons. They each report separately to the board.

Some major donors, including Germany and Sweden, expressed their dismay by freezing their donations.

Also, CBS News reported,

Germany, the European Commission and Denmark withheld hundreds of millions of euros in funding pending reviews of the fund's internal controls. Germany — the fund's fourth-largest donor- has since restored its funding.

Summary and Comment
In summary, the uncovering of specific instances of corruption that wasted the assets of the Global Fund, and the concerns of international donors about the effects of corruption on the Fund have been some of the causes of a freeze in funding that will preclude new initiatives at least until 2014. This is a dramatic illustration of how corruption can undermine health care.

We wondered previously whether the realization that corruption was subverting the Fund's activities would lead the Fund to actively address corruption.  In fact, the Fund seems to have investigated previous corruption affecting its work more aggressively than have many other health care organizations.  However, the Fund did not appear to have instituted any initiatives to prevent, forestall, or challenge corruption.  In that, it is typical of nearly every health care organization in the world.

Transparency International defines corruption as "abuse of entrusted power for private gain."  By that definition, many of the cases discussed on Health Care Renewal are about corruption.  For example, if a pharmaceutical company pays physicians as part of a deceptive marketing campaign that exaggerates the benefits or minimizes the harms of a drug, and that campaign increases sales and hence executive compensation, one could argue that the case involves corruption of both of physicians and of company management.  We have discussed many such cases on Health Care Renewal.  One striking example was the stealth marketing campaign for Neurontin as described in posts here, here, here and here.

Thus, there are many examples of corruption affecting health care professionals and academics, and all sorts of health care organizations, hospitals, health care insurers, pharmaceutical and device companies, health care information technology companies, medical education and communication companies, contract research organizations, etc, etc, etc  In 2006, Transparency International's Global Corruption Report asserted in its executive summary, " the scale of corruption is vast in both rich and poor countries."  As we summarized here, the report discussed the scale and diversity of health care corruption, and the severity of its adverse effects.

However, at least for a generation, there has been almost no opposition to such corruption.  In fact, as we have noted, health care corruption, and the problems and leadership and governance that lead to it, have been nearly anechoic.  Specifically, there is almost no teaching or research on corruption in health care academics (including medical and public health schools, and programs in health care research and policy.)  There is almost no mention of corruption by health care professional associations.  There are almost no initiatives to fight corruption on the part of health care charities and donors.  There is almost no interest in corruption among patient advocacy organizations.  (See previous discussion here.)

Why do they all ignore such a huge problem?  Most likely it is because of institutional and individual conflicts of interests.  Most of the these organizations are substantially funded by health care corporations, including corporations most involved in corruption, (and parenthetically, by financial firms whose corruption was likely a major cause of the global financial collapse / great recession, the other ostensible cause of the freeze of Global Fund grants.)  Many prominent health professionals and academics, and health care organizational leaders themselves have individual financial relationships with such companies.  For example, a majority of US medical school department chairs have significant financial relationships with health care corporations (see post here).  We have shown how top medical school leaders may simultaneously serve on the boards of directors of health care corporations (see post here).  People who are personally profiting from relationships with health care corporations are unlikely to question such relationships.  The leaders of organizations which depend on funding from such corporations are unlikely to question whether conflicts of interest might lead to corruption.  People whose colleagues, friends, family members, or supervisors are personally benefiting from conflicts of interest may hesitate to challenge such relationships.

So will the freeze of new grants at the Global Fund at least get health care corruption on the agenda?  One can only hope.  I personally hope that there are enough honest and unconflicted people remaining who will raise their voices above a murmur, even if that might discomfit those around them.

Of course, one reason we started Health Care Renewal was to make these issues less anechoic. So hear we go again.


PS - If anyone in our vast audience does know about any additional anti-corruption or conflict of interest, or pro-accountability, integrity, transparency, honesty and ethics initiatives, courses, meetings relevant to health care, please let me know and I will do my best to disseminate the information.

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."

The Senate Report

Now the US Senate Finance Committee has reported on their investigation of this incident, and the concerns it raises go beyond just suspicions.  As reported by Alicia Mundy in the Wall Street Journal,

The Senate report, 'Sanofi's Strategic Use of Third Parties to Influence the FDA,' said the company enlisted medical experts to conduct 'independent interaction' with the FDA to hold on to Lovenox's market.

Between 2007 and 2010, the company contributed more than $2.6 million to the Society of Hospital Medicine; more than $2.3 million to the North American Thrombosis Foundation, which studies blood clots; and more than $260,000 to Dr. Tapson, the report said.

Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), chairman of the Finance Committee, said: 'Pharmaceutical companies simply cannot be allowed to spend millions of dollars to buy medical opinions that claim objectivity but instead favor their products.'

The Society of Hospital Medicine was initially reluctant to write the letter, according to emails released by the committee. The society's director told Sanofi in a June 2008 email that his group 'has no history of making similar comments to the FDA' and might not have 'the expertise or knowledge to say much about' the issue.

However, the email added, 'we want to give any issue that is important to our partner careful consideration.'

Two months later, the society sent its letter to the FDA. A Sanofi public-relations representative later cited the letter in an internal email as a 'key accomplishment.'

The report itself made clear why Sanofi wanted the FDA to delay or deny approval of the generic version of Lovenox:

According to a 2009 Sanofi slide presentation on its 'Lovenox Patient Safety Strategy,' a core issue faced by Sanofi was the 'imminent threat to [Sanofi’s] Lovenox franchise' posed by 'generic alternatives.'

It also made clear how much financial impact Sanofi had on the SHM:

SHM received $2,675,850 from Sanofi from January 2007 through August 11, 2010 for conference exhibits, sponsorship, and grants. Sanofi’s payments to SHM totaled $1,132,500 between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009, accounting for 8 percent of SHM’s total revenue during those 2 years.

It made clear that the letter the SHM wrote to the FDA resulted from its interactions with Sanofi:

Internal Sanofi communications indicate that SHM consulted with the American College of Chest Physicians and Dr. Tapson about sending a letter to the FDA after 'a very positive meeting' with Sanofi officials.

Summary

So let us just walk through this again. Sanofi wanted to keep generic Lovenox off the market. Sanofi pushed two medical societies to which it provided considerable funding to try to persuade the FDA not to approve generic Lovenox, without revealing their financial ties to Sanofi or that Sanofi had instigated their protests. At the time, at least one of the societies' leaders denied that its attempt to persuade the FDA had anything to do with its relationship to Sanofi.

Note that Sanofi's use of two medical societies and a "key opinion leader" to try to influence public policy without disclosing the company's causal role was an example of what Wendell Potter called a "third-party" tactic (see this post).  While Mr Potter outlined a series of tactics used by public relations department of health insurance corporations to further their policy objectives, often in such deceptive and systematic ways as to constitute disinformation campaigns, there has not been such a broad description of these these tactics used by other kinds of health care organizations.  Now it looks like drug companies' PR departments are also users of these techniques.  Most likely they have been deployed throughout the health care sphere to promote policies that benefit particular companies, often at the expense of health care professionals, patients, or the public at large.

On a personal note, I am a general internist who spent some time as an academic hospitalist.  The SHM is the main society for hospitalists, and is allied with the Society for General Internal Medicine (e.g., see here), to which I belong, and which I have served in a variety of capacities.  Thus I am very sad about the hole into which the SHM leadership has apparently fallen. 

The SHM and NATF leadership have apparently become stealth health policy advocates, and actively tried to change government policy on behalf of a corporation that had funded them.  Thus, these medical societies acted more like public relations or lobbying firms.  In doing so, they appeared to subverted their own missions, and their members' values.

A short time ago, we noted the cases of two medical societies that got substantial funding from drug and device companies, and thus seemed to function more like marketing firms that professional associations.  Now we have two cases of medical societies that seemed to function more like public relations and lobbying firms than professional associations.

So all the organizations which ought to have upheld health care professionals' values against the onslaught of laissez faire commercialized medicine, now medical societies as well as academic medical centers, medical schools and their parent universities, and medical and health care foundations, seem to have been systematically sold out to big health care corporations' marketers and public relations flacks. 

What Is To Be Done?

If we health care professionals really want to improve patient care and the public health, we could start by exercising extreme skepticism about the funding and leadership intentions of our own professional associations.  If these societies appear as dependent on industry for money as they are dependent on their own members, and/or if they appear to be acting more like marketing, public relations or lobbying firms, why do we continue to enable such behavior?  Why should we pay dues to marketing, public relations or lobbying firms?  We need to have our medical societies uphold their own missions, or we need to get new medical societies. 

Hat tip to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) blog.

More Medical Societies Supported by Industry

There were several new reports about the extent that medical societies are supported by industry.  Last week we asked whether the extent of the industrial support provided the Heart Rhythm Society made that organization appear to be more of a marketing firm than a professional society. 

Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions (SCAI)

ProPublica reported last week:

The Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) received 57 percent of its revenues in 2009 from medical device and pharmaceutical makers, according to financial information on the group's website.

Industry contributions to the society's budget covered $4.7 million of the $8.2 million it received that year.

The group's biggest funders are the companies with the biggest share of the stent market: Cordis Corp. (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson), Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic.

So here is another medical society that gets more money from pharmaceutical, biotechnology and device companies than it does from its members.

The SCAI does not make obvious any relationships among its board members and officers and industry and does make publicly accessible its CEO's compensation or its recent 990 forms (see its web-site here).


National Lipid Association (NLA)

The CardioBrief blog discussed the somewhat more convoluted case of the sources of support of the National Lipid Association.

First blogger Larry Husten examined the role of industry support for the association's "clinical guidance papers" on familial hypercholesterolemia  (FH). These papers recommended extremely aggressive screening for high cholesterol, that is, starting for 9 year old children, and 2 year olds whose families' had histories of elevated cholesterol and coronary disease. The conference that came up with these ideas was supported by drug companies, per the first blog post in a three-part series:

The January 2011 NLA familial hypercholesterolemia recommendations conference was supported by unrestricted grant funding from the following companies: Abbott Laboratories, Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Daiichi Sankyo, Genzyme, Kaneka Pharma America LLC, and Merck & Co.

Also,

Each of these companies would benefit from increased screening and treatment of FH and some, such as Keneka, Aegerion, and Genzyme have a huge portion of their future invested in FH.

Furthermore,

The executive summary of the papers includes disclosures from all of the authors, and all the authors list industry ties, and all but two of the authors disclose multiple relationships with industry (see below). Nearly all had ties with the companies that sponsored the conference. In an interview, [chair of the expert panel Dr Anne] Goldberg, told me that 'we believe in transparency' but that, unlike organizations like the ACC and the AHA, 'we have not taken people off of committees because of any ties with industry.'

A second blog post noted that a brochure on FH published by the NLA was supported by a drug company (Genzyme) and that:

The NLA offers a multitude of CME programs, nearly all of which are  commercially supported by the pharmaceutical industry. Often the content of the programs are closely tied to the interests of the sponsor. For instance, the program on 'Lipid-Altering Drug Pharmacology and Safety' is supported by Abbott, Merck/Schering-Plough, and Reliant, all of whom manufacture popular lipid drugs.

However, in pursuit of the "transparency" promised above, Mr Husten was not able to get a clear idea of the total amount of industry support supplied to the NLA:

the NLA does not provide a detailed account of its revenue from industry, so it is impossible to say with certainty precisely how reliant it is upon industry support.

Note that the association's 2010 990 form listed revenues totaling $3,657,060, of which $1,106,091 came from meeting registration, and $216,356 from dues.  So this society received about 36% of its revenue from these traditional sources, while it received 37% from contributions and grants ($1,246,242) plus $116,750 in exhibitor fees.  (Other sources of revenue were less easy to classify.)  This suggests that the NLA does receive substantial revenue from industry.

The NLA did not list amongst its disclosures whether its board members and officers had their own financial relationships with industry.

Furthermore, the NLA seems particularly opaque about its hired executives and how much they are paid. Its 2010 990 form did not name its highest-compensated employees, nor list their compensation. Although it noted that its management was "delegated" to Compass Management & Consulting, it did not state the amount paid to Compass,  or the compensation given to any Compass employees who are effectively the NLA's highest-paid employees, nor did it list Compass as one of its most highly-paid independent contractors. Mr Husten discovered an addendum to a 2010 financial report also posted on the web that did state Compass' compensation was $662,640 in "management fees," and $326,378 for "commissions" for "fund-raising, a total of $989,018, equal to 25% of the organization's total expenses of $3,945,688.

Summary

Here are two more examples of medical societies that receive substantial revenues from companies that make products about which the societies' members may decide to prescribe or implant. In both cases, the societies' seemed to receive at least as much revenue from industry as they did  from members for dues, registration fees, and the like. Although both societies claimed to value transparency, neither disclosed the extent that society leaders and paid managers benefited from the societies' or their own relationships with industry.  So there is reason to be concerned about the extent their volunteer leaders and paid executives may benefit from the soceities' and their own personal relationships with industry.

He who pays the piper calls the tune.  So it does not appear unreasonable to ask whether these societies should be regarded as at least as beholden to their industrial funders as to their members and meeting attendees?  So should they be regarded as commercial marketing firms at least as much as professional societies?

As we said before, if medical societies have come to resemble marketing firms, is it any wonder that they have not spoken up against the commercialization of health care, even when the result has not been good for physicians' core values? But in that case, why would physicians who care about their patients and their core values want to belong and pay dues to marketing firms? Inquiring minds want to know....


Maybe physicians should only join medical societies that really act like medical societies.

Has the Heart Rhythm Society Become More Like a Marketing Firm?

ProPublica's and USA Today's joint investigation of one medical society's ties to industry has created a stir.  (The full ProPublica version is here.)  It's worth doing a little reading between the lines to see its further implications.

The Basic Story

The story focused first on the annual meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), a sub-specialized medical society for cardiologists who specialize in electrical or rhythm disorders.  The meeting seemingly has become a giant marketing opportunity, supported by $5 million in industry money, in which practically every flat surface became a medium for advertising.  (The ProPublica article included multiple pictures of branded items from carpets in the exhibit halls to the backs of the seats in shuttle buses.) Also,

St. Jude Medical adorns every hotel key card. Medtronic ads are splashed on buses, banners and the stairs underfoot. Logos splay across shuttle bus headrests, carpets and cellphone-charging stations.

At night, a drug firm gets the last word: A promo for the heart drug Multaq stood on each doctor’s nightstand Wednesday.

Then reporters Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber looked at the HRS as a whole, noting that half the society's total income comes from industry, and "Twelve of 18 directors are paid speakers or consultants for the companies, one holds stock, and the outgoing president disclosed research ties, according to the society’s website, which does not specify how much they receive."  Furthermore, "Two of the society’s biggest funders — Boston Scientific and St. Jude Medical — have paid millions since 2009 to settle federal allegations that they improperly paid kickbacks to unidentified physicians to use their cardiac devices. Neither company admitted wrongdoing."

The article raised tantalizing questions and implied others, but despite the reporters' best attempts, leaders of the HRS and their defenders failed to address them.  Their failure to grapple with the real issues is to me the most disturbing part of the story.

Why Take the Money?

ProPublica published a companion piece consisting of questions to and responses from the HRS President, Dr Douglas L Packer, and President-Elect, Dr Bruce L Wilkoff. The first response was the rationale for taking the money:

Advances in electrophysiology depend on a collaborative relationship between physicians and industry....

Later,

It is imperative that we interact with industry to develop better therapies and test them thoroughly in rigorous clinical trials.

This response is very common from physicians and other health professionals defending relationships with industry. Note that this response, similar to previous ones, is off the point. The issue is not all relationships with industry. It is about relationships in which industry pays people, or in this case, a group of people for purposes not always clear, but when clear are related to marketing. Payments from industry to physicians and health professionals are not necessary for collaboration. If the goal is innovation and development of therapies, how is that supported by payments to a medical society to provide marketing opportunities?

Why Subject the Meeting Attendees to All That Advertising?

Much of the money received by the society was obviously for marketing purposes. The effect of these payments was the advertising barrage noted above. So the obvious questions are: is it beneficial for the society to expose its members and other meeting attendees to all this marketing?  Should making its members accessible to marketing be a major part of the society's activities?

When questioned by ProPublica, the organization's leadership evaded:

Q. Items at your conference—from key cards to newspaper wraps—are available for sponsorships. What is the purpose of these sponsorships? Does the livelihood of the organization depend on them? Do the ads have an impact on what your members buy and use in their practices?

A. The Heart Rhythm Society offers sponsorship opportunities at the annual scientific sessions to provide advertising opportunities for participating exhibitors. Approximately 50 percent of the revenue for the annual scientific sessions is generated by industry in a combination of exhibit space rental (largest), sponsorship/promotional advertising opportunities, unrestricted educational grants and exhibitor office suites. The society does not collect data or ask attendees if sponsorship or advertising impacts their purchase decisions.

Very few people quoted in the ProPublic series ventured to defend the marketing onslaught. There was only this. In a newer follow up article, Chris Ornstein quoted meeting attendees with similar sentiments:

'I’ve always been rather offended that people who aren’t doctors think I’m susceptible to bribes and corruption,' [Raleigh, NC electophysiologist Dr Mark] Englehardt said. 'A lot of what you learn about products is from people that sell the products. … You have to learn it somewhere.'

Note that the good Dr Englehardt lead off by invoking a straw-man fallacy. Being influenced by advertising is not the same as taking bribes. No one accused those attending the conference of taking bribes. More importantly, his argument in favor of advertising invoked a false dilemma (or false dichotomy). There certainly are sources of information about products, and particularly about electrophysiologic devices, beyond manufacturers' advertising.  The choice is not simply ignorance versus advertising.

Others merely sought to minimize the harms of exposure to so much advertising. For example, one of the HRS' defenders, who not coincidentally runs a much larger medical society, which also has had its issues with its extensive ties to industry, (look here) said:

The 'circus element' of the exhibit booths doesn’t unduly influence attendees, [CEO of the American College of Cardiology Jack] Lewin said. 'I don’t buy a soft drink just because of the advertising… I buy it because I like it.'

Maybe not, but the analogy may not be apt. Furthermore, we have seen a stream of physicians, other health professionals, and academics deny that they are influenced by marketing or monetary incentives. It is hard to believe, however, that industry would spend so much trying to influence opinions without some evidence that the money provides some results. In addition, most people seem to lack insight about what influences their opinions, especially when consciously admitting such influence might threaten their self-image.

On the other hand, the follow-up article also noted:

Some doctors acknowledged that the corporate barrage must have some effect. 'I hope not, but I’m certain that it does,' said Dr. Christopher Conley of Nashville, Tenn. 'I’m sure the companies do their own research. They wouldn’t be here, they wouldn’t be putting all this money out if it didn’t influence people.'

It seems obvious that all the advertising was meant to sell products. It seems unlikely that marketers spend so much money without some reason to believe it would have an effect. Even if it had little effect, was there any benefit to selling all that marketing space that would counter-act one glaringly obvious harm? By raising so much money from such obvious and widespread marketing, the Cardiac Rhythm Society meeting is liable to be viewed more as a marketing event than a serious scientific or professional venue.

Is It a Professional Society, or a Marketing Firm?

As noted above, accepting so much money for such a large marketing presence at its national meeting makes the Heart Rhythm Society appear to resemble a marketing firm.  Other information revealed by ProPublica increases the apparent similarity. 

Societies are groups of people who gather for a common purpose.  Medical societies ought to be groups of doctors who gather for common purposes, usually including promoting their own professional interests and upholding professional values.  They typically used to convene meetings for educational or advocacy purposes, and publish journals or other media.  Thus their typical sources of revenue could be dues, meeting registrations, and subscription and similar fees. 

However, as noted above, half of the Heart Rhythm Society's budget comes from industry, specifically "from makers of drugs, catheters and defibrillators used to control abnormal heart rhythms," according to ProPublica.  The picture was similar in 2009.  I reviewed the organization's most recent (2009) financial disclosure (990 form) filed with the US Internal Revenue Service and made available to the public by Guidestar.  In that year, the organization's total revenues were $14,772,708.  Revenues from "grants and sponsorships" were $4,061,883 and from annual meeting exhibits were $3,065,750, for a total of $7,127,633.  So only about half of the society's revenues came from traditional sources, including meeting registration ($4,749,974) and dues ($1,513,361).  Given that some of the registration fees doubtless came from industry attendees, and some product sales ($212,298) and royalties ($511,760) also came from industry sources, the organization's revenue makes it appear at least at least as much like a marketing firm as a medical society. 

Note that one group of beneficiaries of this industry largess was the organization's paid managers.  The 990 form listed eight executives who made over $150,000 a year in the worst years so far of the Great Recession.  Its CEO received total compensation of $532,691.  His compensation used 3.6% of the organization's total revenue. 

Moreover, the majority of the Heart Rhythm Society's board and officers have major ties to manufacturers of drugs and devices used in the diagnosis and treatment of heart rhythm problems.  As noted above, 12/18 directors were found to have ties to the companies which advertised at the meeting.  Perusal of disclosure forms which the Society, to its credit, does make public here, revealed only three of 20 officers and directors who had nothing to disclose in 2011-12. The current President, Dr Douglas L Packer, had two pages of disclosures, including 10 different device or biotechnology companies from whom he got "significant" (over $10,000) grants or royalty income.  Many other board members and officers had "significant" financial relationships, consulting/ honoraria, speakers' bureau membership, equity interests, with drug, biotechnology, or device companies which make products relevant to cardiac rhythm disorders.
 
The leaders of the society asserted their ability to "manage" industry relationships:

Due to thorough policies and procedures in place for working with industry, the Heart Rhythm Society is comfortable identifying and managing various interactions with industry. Additionally, the society seeks multiple supporters for its educational programs in order to avoid the perception that programs are tied to a specific company. The society has sufficient measures in place to prevent undue influence from industry or introduction of industry bias into HRS-sponsored educational programs, research, scientific documents and policy initiatives.

Later, when directly questioned about the implications of receiving half the organization's funding from industry, they evaded again:

Q. Some researchers on conflicts of interest say that when a medical society receives half of its funding from industry, it is codependent on them and therefore will—consciously or not—avoid criticizing the products they make. How would you respond?

A.  The Heart Rhythm Society’s first and foremost concern is to provide effective and appropriate treatment options to our patients.  It is imperative that we interact with industry to develop better therapies and test them thoroughly in rigorous clinical trials. For this reason, we believe that interacting with industry is not inherently wrong with the correct measures in place to mitigate the possibility of conflicts of interest.

Moreover, the Society maintains a neutral position on all products and services offered by industry. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is our source for information about new products, safety alerts and drug recalls.

Half of the organization's revenues come from industry, and the organization is willing to expose its meeting attendees to a barrage of advertising to obtain most of these revenues. Providing such advertising does not seem to maintaining "a neutral position." Do its leaders really mean that this proportion of support has no influence on them or how the organization is run? Nearly all the organization's officers and directors have their own financial relationships with industry. Do they really think that these relationships have no effect on their thinking? Would the leaders be indifferent to losing half of the organization's financial support and their own personal financial relationships with industry? If they would not be indifferent to this eventuality, can they argue they are uninfluenced?  Would the organization's CEO, whose compensation is over 3% of the organization's total revenue, be indifferent to a decrease of 50% in that revenue?  If not, could he be uninfluenced by the source of this revenue?

Summary: Why Pay Dues to a Marketing Firm?

As health care dysfunction has gotten worse over the years, as costs rise, access falls, and quality stagnate, as physicians are subject perverse incentives and deceptive marketing, as the medical research literature has been suppressed and manipulated, there have been surprisingly few responses from medical societies.  The case study provided by ProPublica of one such society suggests one reason why.  Medical societies seem to behave increasingly like marketing firms.  The majority of their revenue may not come from their members.  They may be willing to subject their members to a flood of marketing to make more money.  Their leaders may have extensive relationships with industry.  Their paid managers may be dependent on industry revenue for out sized compensation.

If medical societies have come to resemble marketing firms, is it any wonder that they have not spoken up against the commercialization of health care, even when the result has not been good for physicians' core values?  But in that case, why would physicians who care about their patients and their core values want to belong and pay dues to marketing firms?  Inquiring minds want to know....

Maybe physicians should only join medical societies that really act like medical societies.

For further discussion in the blogsphere, see this post by Merrill Goozner on the GoozNews blog, this post by Howard Brody on the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog, this post by Daniel Carlat on the Carlat Psychiatry blog, and this post by Paul Thacker on the Project on Government Oversight blog.

Who Is Really "Bullying?" - Academic Leaders and the Stifling of Critics of Conflicts of Interests

Universities, which are supposed to discover and disseminate knowledge, ought to be the foremost defenders of free speech and a free press.  However, in the past decades, university executives have become notorious for trying to control speech that offends their political sensibilities (for numerous examples, see the FIRE - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education web-site.) 

It seems that academic leaders get even more upset when their or their faculties' conflicts of interest are criticized, as demonstrated by updates about two important cases we have discussed.

Columbia University

We recently posted about reactions at the university to revelations in the movie "Inside Job" that the Dean of the Business School and one of its prominent professors failed to disclose pay they received that might have motivated their enthusiastic promotion of economic policies that helped contribute to the Great Recession. 

These reactions occurred six months after the movie came out.  A Columbia Spectator student columnist asked why it took so long:

Why have students waited until April to address the consequences of “Inside Job” when the film was released in October? Why has our reaction been delayed by seven months?

Her postulated answer:

Why should Columbia need an outside documentary to point out its ethical failures?

Embedded in the Spectator news article about the film—published April 15— is a quote from University Senator Liya Yu that offers a frightening answer to our question about the delayed student reaction. 'I think people in the Business School haven’t responded because they are afraid,' Yu was quoted saying. 'If you are the dean of a school, obviously all the students are going to be dependent on you for their careers and futures. It’s hard for them to do anything.' I think this explanation extends to students beyond those currently enrolled in the Business School. In fact, its implications pose a threat to student journalism as a whole. For the first time in history, everything that a student journalist writes during his or her time in college is published on the Internet. This is a good thing for many reasons: It increases readership, allows writers to cross-reference easily, etc. But it also creates a permanent, compromising memory that is available forever to anyone who seeks it.

From the moment the college application process began, we were told that the content of our Facebook profiles could be used against us in admissions. We have learned to censor our traceable online behavior so as not to compromise our professional or educational prospects. Unfortunately, this has led to journalistic over-caution. We fear that anything we say now will be used against us later. And maybe it’s true. After all, not enough time has passed for us to take a careful account of the degree to which students’ first publications can affect their futures. Even editors have advised me to mitigate the strongest claims in my columns for fear of consequences to come. Perhaps they are right. But the most insidious kind of censorship—the hardest to recognize, the hardest to combat—is self-censorship, the persistent imaginative failure that prevents us from even recognizing what we should be writing about.

In the Internet age, bravery in student journalism is not trailing a military unit on the Iraqi front lines. Rather, it is the willingness to address controversial issues as they surface, not once these points of view have become popular. Our brand of fear—which is frankly selfish—censors our thoughts almost unnoticed. Next time, let’s skip the delayed reaction. I for one hope to do better.

So students may fear challenging conflicted faculty or administrators for fear of immediate academic punishment and future harm to career prospects in a society in which criticism of acquisitive leaders is decreasingly tolerated.

University of Minnesota

Earlier this year we posted about the troubling case of the death of an ostensibly voluntary participant in a clinical trial at the University of Minnesota years ago.  A particular concern was whether the money they received from the trial's sponsor influenced faculty and university leaders to overlook problems that might have put patients at risk in a trial whose main goal was marketing, not science.

The case got recent attention in an article by Dr Carl Elliott, a university professor of bioethics, and a letter he signed with other faculty requesting a new university inquiry into the case.  Not only did the university administration rebuff this request, but it now seems to be looking for ways to deter any future criticism of the institution's human research.  As reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education,

At the prompting of the University of Minnesota's general counsel, a committee of the University Senate has taken up the question of how faculty should collectively respond to "factually incorrect attacks" on particular faculty research.

Some faculty members say that direct appeal from the general counsel, Mark B. Rotenberg, is an attempt to quiet some faculty members' criticism of drug trials conducted at the university, including one seven years ago in which a participant, Dan Markingson, committed suicide. Before they took up the general counsel's question at a meeting this month, members of the university's Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee were provided with copies of material related to that case, including a letter sent by eight bioethicists to the Board of Regents last fall, asking it to appoint a panel of outside experts to examine the ethical issues raised by the death.

Committee members discussed with two administrators who attended that meeting, on April 8, whether faculty members have a responsibility to respond to attacks on fellow faculty members, according to minutes from the meeting; failure to do so, one professor said, could be seen as parallel to 'bullying.'

Professor Carl Elliott, who wrote the Mother Jones article that brought the recent unpleasantness of the Markingson case back into the public view, was concerned:

In an interview, Mr. Elliott said the general counsel's actions are troubling. Instead of fostering an open discussion about research practices, Mr. Rotenberg, and by extension the university administration, is attempting to use the faculty senate as a 'stalking horse' for intimidation and punitive action, Mr. Elliott said.

It defies common sense that Dr Elliott, representing only his own intellect and knowledge of ethics, was the "bully" in this case, while Mr Rotenberg, representing the university hierarchy, and the faculty members who ran the trial in which Mr Markingson died were the victims. As University of Minnesota faculty member Karen-Sue Taussig, a medical anthropologist, said per the Bioethics Forum:

I was worried the committee might be being used to intimidate a member of the faculty who was critical of the University. It seemed to me that there was a logical inconsistency in the University counsel's position: he did not provide any evidence that any individual faculty member felt chilled by Carl's work, yet his bringing up the issue clearly posed the threat of chilling Carl's speech. . . . In short, I was concerned about the possibility of an Orwellian attempt to invoke academic freedom in order to chill academic freedom.

By the way, there is also nothing to suggest that Dr Elliott's work was "factually incorrect."  Per the Bioethics Forum:

Philosopher and historian of science Ken Waters, who also attended the second meeting, was just as concerned. 'The University's general council planted a false question, the implicature of which [the committee] seemed to be uncritically accepting (that Carl was advancing factually incorrect claims),' he wrote to me in an e-mail. 'And in planting the question, the counsel was trying to turn the tables and squelch my colleagues' academic freedom by somehow suggesting that they were impinging upon the academic freedom of others.'

In the 1980s and 1990s, university administrators tended to attack speech they felt was hurtful to minorities and women, using speech codes (again as has been amply demonstrated by FIRE). Now they seem most sensitive to speech critical of their own exercise of power, and of the cozy financial relationships that generate conflicts of interest and threaten the academic mission.  Furthermore, now that it has become fashionable to decry "bullying," "anti-bullying" initiatives may become the chief way to quell criticism that make academic leaders uncomfortable.

Summary

At one time, university administrators and favored faculty justified attacks on free enquiry, a crucial part of the academic, by claiming a higher political or social purpose.  Now they seem to be willing to trash the core values of academia to stifle critics of their own actions, especially those involving lucrative conflicts of interest.   Such actions may be a major cause of the anechoic effect.
Increasingly, academic institutuions seem to be run more for the personal benefit of their leaders and their cronies than to discover and disseminate knowledge.  True health care reform would return academic medicine to its fundamental purpose, and return its leadership to those who would uphold the mission rather than fill their pockets.  

Hat tip to Ed Silverman in the PharmaLot blog re the University of Minnesota case.  See also comments by Prof William Gleason in the Periodic Table blog, e.g., here and here, and by Gary Schwitzer in the HealthNewsReview blog.

Henry Kissinger, Iceland's Promoter, Khadafy's Apologists, and the Rise of the Academic Mercenary

In which we discuss how medical academic mercenaries (like the key opinion leaders paid to promote drugs and devices cloaked in their academic and professional credentials) now appear to be just part of a larger problem.
Henry Kissinger

Almost 17 years ago, an article by David Halberstam in Vanity Fair(1) should have warned us of the rise of the academic and intellectual mercenary.  However, back in those go-go years of the new gilded age, most of us were not listening. 

Halberstam focused on Henry Kissinger, once a protege of New York Governor and then US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who became the infamous President Nixon's National Security Advisor, then Secretary of State:

Kissinger’s capacity to be all things to all campaigns—an overt Rockefeller man, a semi-overt Humphrey man, and a covert Nixon man—reflects the emergence of the rootless operator in the modern superstate. Kissinger was the first—though there were others to follow—of the wildly ambitious agents of opportunity set loose in the wilds of Washington and other capitals. They are interchangeable men, singular in their ambitions, unhampered by traditional loyalties or affiliations. They are men so cool and detached in their geopolitical views that they sometimes seem to be part of a new international elite, readily transferable to the governments of allies and adversaries alike.

Two recent dramatic stories show how prevalent academic mercenaries, another breed of "rootless operators," or "wildly ambitious agents of opportunity," have become.

Promoting Iceland: Columbia Professors' "Inside Job"

The Academy Award winning documentary film, "Inside Job," suggested that one cause of the Great Recession was the wrong-headed deregulation of the financial industry deceptively promoted by academics who failed to disclose they were being paid by those who stood to benefit from deregulation.  (See our post here.)

Reconsideration of the roles of two of the academics cited in the film who are faculty at Columbia University shed more light on how public policy was influenced by academics hired to do public relations. The Columbia Spectator just published a three- part series on the local controversy with global implications.

At least a few Columbia faculty realized that it did not look good for their colleagues to do public relations while pretending they were delivering disinterested academic opinions:

[Columbia Economics Department Chair Michael] Riordan added that it is important that Columbia protect its reputation and the public’s trust in its professors’ expert opinions.

'What does the university stand for but if not for the quality of the ideas that come out of that university?' he asked. (2)

Also,

Teachers College professor Kathleen O’Connell ... called the film 'appalling' and said that 'the Columbia professors were even more appalling.' She said she was especially surprised considering Hubbard and Mishkin have both had high-ranking government jobs—Hubbard was at one time a top economic adviser to former President George W. Bush, and Mishkin was a governor of the Federal Reserve.

'I was shocked at the lack of ethics that they displayed. They are in really powerful positions—they have been in powerful positions in the Federal Reserve and the President’s economic advisors,' O’Connell said.(3)

However, there was much resistance to change. Just as we have seen in arguments about conflicts of interest affecting medical faculty, there were those who denied that being paid to consult could affect any faculty member's thinking about the source of the payment:

But some, including Business School professor and University Senator Frank Lichtenberg, oppose the disclosure of consulting to the University. Lichtenberg said that many factors besides money can influence professors’ academic opinions.

'There are lots of other sources of bias and non-neutrality in academia anyway,' Lichtenberg said. 'People often have predispositions for or against different hypotheses, and unfortunately, those sometimes prevail.'

Some professors question whether paid consulting positions influence researchers at all. Business School professor Bruce Greenwald said that the economists featured in 'Inside Job' have 'long espoused and long promoted' pro-market ideas and would have made the same arguments regardless of financial ties.(4)

So we have economists denying the effect of economic incentives?

Beyond that, there were arguments that public disclosure of conflicts of interest would violate faculty members' privacy.

But full public disclosure is not likely to gain much traction in the debate over a University-wide policy. Steele said that it is not necessary to publicly release disclosures made privately to University officials.

'I don’t think that the public needs to have access to forms that people fill out and all the materials that go into that,' [Provost Paul] Steele said. 'That would be onerous at least, and there might be other objections … that you are invading people’s sense of privacy and freedom.'(2)

I suppose that would have made some sense if the faculty member had not made any public pronouncements that could have been influenced by the undisclosed conflicts. However, the contention in "Inside Job" was that conflicted academic economists publicly advocated on behalf of their undisclosed clients. For example,

In 2006, the Iceland Chamber of Commerce paid Columbia Business School professor Frederic Mishkin $134,858 to co-author a report on Iceland’s economy and banking systems. In the report, titled 'Financial Stability in Iceland,' Mishkin painted a bright picture of the country’s economic future, but he did not disclose who was paying him to write it.

'Although Iceland’s economy does have imbalances that will eventually be reversed, financial fragility is not high and the likelihood of a financial meltdown is very low,' Mishkin wrote.

Two years later, Iceland’s economy collapsed. Its major banks failed, its currency lost much of its value, and thousands of its citizens lost their jobs. The New York Times wrote at the time that, to Icelanders, 'the collapse came so fast it seemed unreal, impossible.'(2)

Harvard Professors' Paid Apologia for Moammar Khadafy

Praising Iceland's economy was one thing. Praising brutal Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy as democratic was another.

In March, 2011, Mother Jones disclosed(5) how a consulting group run by Harvard professors was hired in part to burnish the image of Moammar Khadafy, who since has ordered brutal attacks on protesters within his country.

In February 2007 Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr., who developed the concept of "soft power,' visited Libya and sipped tea for three hours with Muammar Qad'afi. Months later, he penned an elegant description of the chat for The New Republic, reporting that Qaddafi had been interested in discussing 'direct democracy.' Nye noted that 'there is no doubt that' the Libyan autocrat 'acts differently on the world stage today than he did in decades past. And the fact that he took so much time to discuss ideas—including soft power—with a visiting professor suggests that he is actively seeking a new strategy.' The article struck a hopeful tone: that there was a new Qaddafi. It also noted that Nye had gone to Libya 'at the invitation of the Monitor Group, a consulting company that is helping Libya open itself to the global economy.'

Nye did not disclose all. He had actually traveled to Tripoli as a paid consultant of the Monitor Group (a relationship he disclosed in an email to Mother Jones), and the firm was working under a $3 million-per-year contract with Libya. Monitor, a Boston-based consulting firm with ties to the Harvard Business School, had been retained, according to internal documents obtained by a Libyan dissident group, not to promote economic development, but 'to enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi.' So The New Republic published an article sympathetic to Qaddafi that had been written by a prominent American intellectual paid by a firm that was being compensated by Libya to burnish the dictator's image.

Monitor also sponsored trips to Libya for scholars from other universities who also later wrote positively about Khadafy's and his reign over Libya, presumably after they had received their large consulting fees.

The Boston Globe reported(6) in more detail about a proposal by Monitor to write a laudatory book about Khadafy:

It reads like Libyan government propaganda, extolling the importance of Moammar Khadafy, his theories on democracy, and his 'core ideas on individual freedom.'


But the 22-page proposal for a book on Khadafy was written by Monitor Group, a Cambridge-based consultant firm founded by Harvard professors. The management consulting firm received $250,000 a month from the Libyan government from 2006 to 2008 for a wide range of services, including writing the book proposal, bringing prominent academics to Libya to meet Khadafy 'to enhance international appreciation of Libya' and trying to generate positive news coverage of the country.

As further documented in the Globe article, it was very clear that Monitor was paid not just to provide consultation, but to do public relations work on behalf of the Khadafy regime.

Yet an article in the Nation(7) made it clear that the prominent academics it hired did not disclose who paid them, or the purposes of those payments:

Joseph Nye of Harvard’s Kennedy School wrote in The New Republic in 2007 that Muammar Qaddafi was interested in discussing 'direct democracy.'

Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics wrote in the Guardian the same year that Libya under Qaddafi could become 'the Norway of North Africa.'

Benjamin Barber of Rutgers University wrote in the Washington Post, also in 2007, that Libya under Qaddafi could become 'the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government.

Great minds think alike? Actually, no: all were being paid by Libyan money, under a $3 million per year contract with a consulting group which promised to 'enhance the profile of Libya and Muammar Quadhafi' in Britain and the US.

One more thing: none of them said in The New Republic, the Guardian, or the Washington Post that they were being paid by Libyan money.

So here again we have the elements of what Wendell Potter (see this post) called the "third party strategy." A public relations company hires outside "experts" with veneers of academic or professional credibility to promote the interests of its clients, without disclosing that the "experts" have become paid flacks. Again, this is bad enough when it is done on behalf of health policies favorable to commercial insurance companies. It is worse when it is done on behalf of brutal dictators.

More recently, the Globe discovered(8) that the Monitor Group negotiated with the head of the Libyan intelligence service who had been implicated in various violent acts,

He is Moammar Khadafy’s brother-in-law and his most trusted aide, convicted in absentia for the 1989 bombing of a French airliner and implicated in the 1996 massacre of 1,200 Libyan political prisoners.

But in 2006, Abdullah Al Sanusi was also the man who arranged the services of a noted Cambridge consulting firm in a very different project: revamping Libya’s reputation on the world stage.

Sanusi, a longtime head of Libya’s intelligence services, oversaw initial negotiations with the Monitor Group, which was vying for a contract with Libya to bring prominent Americans to speak to Khadafy as part of an effort to improve ties and nudge the pariah country toward reforms.

'We believe that your commitment to creating a program of mutual education and relationship building with the Unit ed States remains of critical importance at this turning point in Libyan history. We remain privileged to be trusted with this work,' Monitor’s chief executive, Mark Fuller, and project director, Rajeev Singh-Molares, wrote to Sanusi in 2006.

However, so far, Harvard leadership has if anything been more defensive about its faculty members' stealth public relations work for a brutal dictator than was Columbia's leadership about its faculty member's stealth public relations work for Iceland. As reported(9) again by the Boston Globe,

A prominent Harvard professor and former university administrator urged Harvard President Drew Faust during a faculty meeting yesterday to express 'shame'’ on behalf of the university at the disclosure of financial ties between a senior academic and Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy.

Saying nothing would send the wrong message to students, giving them the impression that personal financial gain could come at the expense of ethical conduct, said Harry Lewis, a computer science professor who formerly served as undergraduate dean.

'Shouldn’t Harvard acknowledge its embarrassment, and might you remind us that when we parlay our status as Harvard professors for personal profit, we can hurt both the university and all of its members?' Lewis asked Faust at the monthly gathering of the arts and sciences faculty.

Faculty meetings are closed to outside media, but Lewis provided the Globe a written transcript of his statement, which he sent to Faust several days ago.

Faust — who, according to Lewis, told him she did not want to be 'scold in chief' — said she supports the wide discretion of faculty members to pursue the directions of academic inquiry and outside engagements they choose.

How low once proud institutions have fallen was demonstrated by a Harvard President who could not bring herself to "scold" faculty who were paid to provide public relations for a brutal dictator while hiding behind their Harvard titles.  Her action was not just "a weak standard for an institution of global leadership,"(10) but failed to erase "a distinctive odor, one that emanates from the corruption of academic reputation."(11)

Summary

Since before we first started this blog, we wondered somewhat despairingly how medicine, and particularly academic medicine, had become so badly lead.  Since the global economic collapse/ Great Recession it belatedly became clear that health care has just been swept along by the waves that drove larger social, economic and political institutions.  In particular, when we wondered how conflicts of interest had become so pervasive in medicine, we did not realize how pervasive conflicts of interest and corruption had become throughout the world.  The fact that leaders of previously revered educational institutions like Columbia and Harvard still cannot bring themselves even to admit the need to disclose conflicts, much less "scold" people for selling out to brutal tyrants indicates how deep the rot has gone.

Fixing the great problems of health care will require fixing the greater problems of society at large.  We must learn to discredit, not honor the "wildly ambitious agents of opportunity" that have been sent out to dominate the new gilded age.   


References


1.  Halberstam D. The new establishment: the decline and fall of the Eastern Empire. Vanity Fair, October, 1994. Link here.
2. Poliak S. 'Inside Job' prompts new look at conflict of interest policy. Columbia Spectator, April 13, 2011. Link here.
3. Poliak S. After documentary, B-school rethinking ethics. Columbia Spectator, April 15, 2011. Link here.
4. Poliak S, Roth S. 'Inside Job' sparks three separate reviews of disclosure policy. Columbia Spectator, April 14, 2011. Link here.
5. Corn D, Mahanta S. From Libya with love. Mother Jones, March 3, 2011. Link here.
6. Stockman F. Local consultants aided Khadafy. Boston Globe, March 4, 2011. Link here.
7. Wiener J. Professors paid by Qaddafi: providing 'positive public relations.' The Nation, March 5, 2011. Link here.
8. Stockman F. Top Khadafy aide helped craft deal with local firm. Boston Globe, March 30, 2011. Link here.
9. Jan T. Harvard leader confronted on professor's ties to Libya. Boston Globe, April 6, 2011. Link here.
10. Anonymous. Yes, Harvard chief should scold profs who worked for Khadafys.  Boston Globe, April 11, 2011.  Link here.
11.  Barrett PM. The professors and Qaddafi's extreme makeover.  Bloomberg BusinessWeek, April 6, 2011.  Link here.

"The 'Third Rail' that No One Wishes to Analyze" - Conflicts of Interest Affecting Health Care Foundations

On Health Care Renewal we discuss what we think are important issues affecting health care that seem to be rarely mentioned in the medical and health care literature and the "main-stream media."  In particular, we focus on problems in health care leadership and governance, how they threatened the core values of health care professionals, and how these threats contribute to rising costs, and declining access and quality. 

One of our preoccupations has been why these problems remain so anechoic.  A new article in PLoS Medicine [Stuckler D, Basu S, McKee M. Global health philanthropy and institutional relationships: how should conflicts of interest be addressed? PLoS Med 8(4): e1001020. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001020.  Link here. ] seems to have uncovered another missing link to the anechoic effect. 

Private Foundations and Their Influence on Global Health

The article noted the importance of the influence of private foundations on global health:

While corporate involvement in and government aid for health has been extensively analyzed and critiqued in the public health literature, less attention has been paid to the impact of private donors on public health. Over the past decade, the bulk of new health aid designed to reach the Millennium Development Goals has come from individuals and corporations. The influence of this private philanthropy on global health is profound and transformative.

So,

Private foundations operate outside the typical boundaries of democracy; unlike government ministries, private foundations cannot be influenced in the same way by the communities affected by the foundations' actions. In the interests of public health, and particularly because poor communities affected by foundations do not automatically have a feedback mechanism to influence the decisions of private funders, we argue that it is appropriate to subject private foundations to the same scrutiny received by public institutions.

In this paper, we examine the scope of potential conflicts of interests that exist among the private foundations that are major funders of global health.

I would add that private foundations may have an outsize influence not only on global public health policy, but also on health care policy within particular countries, including the US.   This may arise because of the perception that they are more independent and nearer the cutting edge than are government and industry sources of funding. For example, here in the US, the Kellogg and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations have been widely perceived by health care, services and policy researchers as especially influential and respectable sources of funding, possibly partially because of the perception that they have less self-serving agendas than do government agencies and for-profit health care corporations.

The Possibility of Conflicts of Interest

The authors noted increasing concern about conflicts of interest affecting the activities of for-profit corporations involved in public health and health care:

because tensions can arise between the profit motives of corporations and the promotion of public health. Whereas corporations make products that can improve health (such as pharmaceuticals and vaccines) and relationships between public health institutions and for-profit corporations can be seen as positive opportunities for corporations to improve public health, corporations also make products that damage health (such as tobacco or unhealthy foods). And because some corporations have a vested interest in the activities of public health bodies, there have been documented attempts to influence the public health agenda by establishing associations with health care institutions

Thus the authors thought it also made sense to address conflicts of interest affecting private foundations operating in the global health space. They performed a case-study of the largest global health foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, while also briefly discussing four other large global health foundations, the Ford Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation.

Stock Holdings

The article noted that the Gates Foundation had substantial investments in food and pharmaceutical companies:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's corporate stock endowment is heavily invested in food and pharmaceutical companies, directly and indirectly .... The Foundation holds significant shares in McDonald's (9.4 million shares representing about 5% of the Gates' portfolio), and Coca-Cola (>15 million shares, over 7% of the Foundation's portfolio, not counting Berkshire Hathaway holdings). In 2009 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sold extensive pharmaceutical holdings in Johnson & Johnson (2.5 million shares), Schering-Plough Corporation (14.9 million shares), Eli Lilly and Company (about 1 million shares), Merck & Co. (8.1 million shares), and Wyeth (3.7 million shares).

Also, the Foundation indirectly invests in food and pharmaceutical companies through its holdings of Berkshire Hathaway:

Berkshire Hathaway's largest investment is in Coca-Cola. It owns an additional 8.7% of Coca-Cola (Warren Buffett's firm is the largest shareholder in Coca-Cola, having stock worth >$10 billion dollars) and 6.3% of Kraft (Buffett is also the largest shareholder of Kraft). Berkshire Hathaway also has significant ownership in GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble, and is one of the main global investors in the latter two pharmaceutical companies.

The article also noted that the Ford, Rockefeller, Kellogg and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation had significant holdings in Coca-Cola, Kellogg, PepsiCo, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, McDonalds, Nestle, NovoNordisk, YumBrands, Pizza Hut, KFC, Johnson & Johnson, and Sanofi-Aventis, and that the Ford Foundation held shares in a tobacco company, Lorillard, and the Kellogg and Rockefeller Foundations "were indirectly invested in tobacco corporations through conglomerate equity funds...."

This admittedly case-based data suggested that the major private foundations active in global health may have financial holdings that could possibly influence their actions in favor of the vested interests of food, pharmaceutical, and even tobacco companies.

Conflicts Affecting Foundation Leadership

The article noted that:

Several of the [Gates] Foundation's members of the management committee, leadership teams, affiliates, and major funders are currently or were previously members of the boards or executive branches of several major food and pharmaceutical companies ... including Coca-Cola, Merck, Novartis, General Mills, Kraft, and Unilever....

In addition,

Further overlaps between Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation leadership, other private foundations, and circular flows of personnel with food and pharmaceutical companies were observed .... Such patterns of interlinked board directorships, common among corporations and nonprofit organizations, were similarly found in the other private foundations studied.

Examples provided in an appendix were:

Anne Fudge, the chairman of the Gates Foundation’s US Program Advisory Panel is also on the board of directors of Rockefeller Foundation (in addition to General Electric, Novartis, Unilever, and Harvard University, among others).

Furthermore,

Members of personnel also move between the Foundation and pharmaceutical companies. For example, in April 2010, a former Merck senior vice president, Richard Henriques, became the chief financial officer of the Gates Foundation. At least two other members of the Gates Foundation leadership have transferred from the leadership of GlaxoSmithKline to sit on the Foundation’s board of directors, including Kate James, the chief communications officer, and Tachi Yamada, until February 2011, the head of the Foundation’s global health program. Similar patterns were observed with the other foundations studied.

Again, this admittedly case-based data suggested that the major private foundations active in global health may have leaders who have financial relationships that could possibly influence their actions in favor of the vested interests of food and pharmaceutical companies.

Program Initiatives Possibly Related to Conflicts

The article asserted:

The bulk of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's financial transfers in global health have been to programs developing medical technologies....

In particular,

Overall, about 42% of all funding was spent on health care delivery or increasing access to drugs, vaccines, and medical commodities, while an additional one-third was allocated to technology development (mainly for vaccines and microbicides) or basic science research.

Specific programs were related to companies in which the the Gates Foundation or its leaders had financial interests:

The Foundation has established partnerships with the Coca-Cola Company, which, in the words of the Foundation, are intended to 'create new market opportunities for local farmers whose fruit will be used for Coca-Cola's locally-produced and sold fruit juices'.

Also,

many of the Foundation's pharmaceutical development grants may benefit leading pharmaceutical companies such as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline....

and

Johnson & Johnson has entered a clinical partnership to develop new HIV-prevention technology, noting 'the work between Johnson & Johnson and the Gates Foundation is a strong, strategic, comprehensive relationship'.

While there are many needs in global health, and many approaches to addressing these needs, this limited case-based data suggested that a strong focus of the Gates Foundation was on approaches that revolve around drugs, devices and biotechnology, again which would tend to favor the vested interests of the pharmaceutical companies which the Foundation holds in its investment portfolio and with which some of its leaders have or had financial relationships.

Discussion

While the data from this case-study were limited, they do suggest that major private foundations that support global health, and by extension, health care, services, and policy research may have institutional conflicts of interest, and their leaders may have personal conflicts of interest. It is possible that these conflicts have steered global health policy to favor vested interests, particularly towards approaches that depend on drugs and devices, perhaps instead of more effective ones using less technology.

Furthermore, it is possible that that these conflicts of interest have helped create the anechoic effect.  Conflicts of interest could have pushed the foundations in directions that favored specific vested interests, and away from others that may threaten such interests.  Many of the issues we discuss on Health Care Renewal may threaten such interests.  Private health foundations have been notably uninterested in addressing how problems in leadership and governance of health care organizations can threaten core values, They have been particularly uninterested in addressing specific tactics used when leadership is ill-informed, incompetent, self-interested, conflicted, or even corrupt, e.g., deceptive practices used to promote products and services, and promote policies favorable to vested interests, including, of course, deliberate creation of conflicts of interest (such as the cultivation of key opinion leaders).

In fact, a particular version of the anechoic effect surrounds the private foundations themselves, as described by Stuckler et al:

Although the philanthropic activities of wealthy individuals and corporations have attracted controversy in the past (Text S1), their charitable mission often means that they face less scrutiny than governments; critical analysis of foundations can be seen as 'biting the hand that feeds us.' As a result, within the global health community, private donors are sometimes viewed as the 'third rail' that no one wishes to analyze.

We have often commented on the pervasiveness of conflicts of interest in health care. Now we see them affecting even the most respected private health care foundations which were previously regarded as independent. The web of conflicts of interest may benefit those personally involved, but to the detriment of patients' and the public's health. Unfortunately, as the web has gotten more complex, it stifles awareness of the problem by the unconflicted, much less their ability to respond.

At a minimum, I urge that private health care foundations fully disclose their institutional conflicts of interest, and the conflicts of interest of their leaders. If they wish to maintain their previously sterling reputations, they ought to consider divesting themselves of financial holdings that generate institutional conflicts, and of leaders who have financial relationships that generate personal conflicts.

Hat tip: to Ed Silverman on the PharmaLot blog.

Once More with Feeling: Another Defense of Conflicts of Interest Based on Logical Fallacies

Despite increasing recognition of the adverse effects of health care professionals' and health care institutions' conflicts of interest on health care, such financial relationships continue to have their prominent defenders.  The latest example was an article in Medscape General Surgery by Frank J Veith MD, entitled "Physicians and Industry: Fix the Relationships, but Keep Them Going."  Dr Veith is a prominent vascular surgeon who "received numerous awards and honors as a leader, outstanding teacher, and innovator in vascular surgery," according to New York University

We have noted before how defenders of conflicted professionals and professional societies often employ logical fallacies to support their arguments.  Some recent examples were discussed here, by a prominent ostensibly libertarian attorney and law professor; here, published in a well-known medical journal by the former director of "medical communications" for a large pharmaceutical firm; and here, by the president of a large medical society, published again in a well-known medical journal.

Dr Veith seems to be continuing that tradition. His approach emphasized frequent repetition of the same fallacious argument.

Straw Man: "Totally Interrupt All Doctor-Industry Relationships"

Dr Veith's main argument seemed to be with attempts to prevent physicians from having any relationships with industry, presumably including not just financial relationships, but professional collaborations or even personal friendships.  For example, he wrote about

a recent initiative to completely sever the relationship between industry and doctors has gained traction. This initiative has been supported by several states, including Massachusetts and Vermont, and universities, such as Harvard, Stanford, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Michigan, which have enacted draconian laws or policies designed to separate doctors and industry and to interrupt any relationship between them.

Furthermore,

Even many individual physicians have sanctimoniously jumped on the bandwagon and written articles or opinion pieces attacking the evils of any relationship between industry and doctors, suggesting the severance of any such relationships.

Then later, Dr Veith wrote,

We should establish rules to prevent or minimize the abuses, but we should not totally interrupt all doctor-industry relationships. To do so is wrong-headed and would eliminate the many beneficial effects that accrue to medical care and society from these relationships. It would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Finally, he concluded thus,

These will be far better solutions than completely eliminating all industry-doctor relationships.... Such safeguards will be better than the present trend for institutions and governments to enact strict measures to separate physicians from industry.

Despite making this argument at least four times, the problem is that Dr Veith provided no citations, much less evidence that such "draconian" policies have been enacted or even advocated.

There have been new policies on conflicts of interest suggested or adopted by some organizations. None, to my knowledge have been exactly "draconian."

For example, Harvard University does have a new policy on conflicts of interest. Maybe Dr Veith was referring to it above when he mentioned Harvard. However, in an interview about the new policy involving university leaders published in the Harvard Gazette, the Vice Provost of the University said,

The University is not designed to be an ivory tower isolated from the world. So the trick is to be able to have a robust system for affording faculty opportunities to engage with the commercial world and at the same time not threaten in any way their own fundamental integrity or that of Harvard.

That hardly sounds like a policy that completely severs all relationships between faculty and industry.
So Dr Veith's main premise seems to be based on a multiply repeated straw-man argument. He argued again and again against a policy that no one seems to be advocating. (And even I, as a hard-liner about conflicts of interest, have never advocated a complete interruption of all relationships of any kind between all physicians and all of industry.)

Appeal to Fear: You Will be "Blighted"

Perhaps just to spice things up, Dr Veith warned of the dire consequences of the "draconian" policies that no one was advocating:

Those institutions that choose such inquisitional approaches will be blighted and suffer competitive disadvantages.

Dr Veith had asserted multiple benefits of continuing relationships among physicians, health care institutions, and commercial firm. He presented no evidence to support his assertions, most of which can be questioned (see below). His warning that institutions will be "blighted" was based on his assertion that the stringent policy no one advocated would eliminate these unproven benefits, hence his warning of  something so severe as "blight" seemed to be an appeal to fear.

Ad Hominem: "Sanctimonious" Physicians Leading a "Witch Hunt"

As noted above, Dr Veith referred to anonymous physicians who "sanctimoniously jumped on the bandwagon," thus leading to

The initiative to separate industry from physicians and surgeons [which] has taken on the trappings of a witch hunt.

And again,

Their leaders should recognize this and resist the temptation to join the separation witch hunt....

My interpretation is that this was an implied set of ad hominems. Those who supposedly advocated the "draconian" policy were made out to be "sanctimonious" witch hunters. After just having seen "The Crucible," I could also argue that the use of the term "witch hunt," with its current extreme emotional references (apparently to a case in which presumably innocent people were hanged), amounted to an appeal to emotion and an appeal to fear.

Summary

I must admit Dr Veith's entire set of arguments was not completely based on logical fallacies.  However, the rest of his arguments hardly appeared even-handed.  He presented a series of assertions about the benefits of such relationships, including that they "foster innovation and development," that "industry-sponsored medical education helps to keep physicians informed about new developments," that industry sponsored education about devices prevents "difficult and dangerous" practices, and helps physicians use devices "better and more safely."  He provided no evidence in favor of these claims, and seemed to ignore arguments about the hazards of payments to physicians biasing their clinical practice, teaching and research.

I should also note that these arguments were made by a physician who appears to have his own personal financial relationships with industry.  In the Medscape article, Dr Veith "disclosed no relevant financial relationships."   However, as a member of the editorial board of Medscape General Surgery, Dr Veith "disclosed the following relevant financial relationships: Owns stock, stock options, or bonds from: Vascular Innovations, Inc."  Furthermore, the disclosure summary for the iCON2011 conference includes the following for Dr Veith, "Honorarium/Expenses: Cook Medical, Cordis, WL Gore, Medtronic." Finally, Dr Veith apparently runs the Veith Symposium, which in 2010 acknowledged the following commercial sponsors: Aastrom, Abbott Vascular, Aptus Endosystems Inc, Atrium, Bard Peripheral Vascular, Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, Cordis Cardiac and Vascular Institute, Delcath Systems Inc, Gore, Hansen Medical, Lombard Medical Technologies, Maquet, Medtronic, Organogenesis Inc, Sanofi-Aventis, St. Jude Medical, Tenaxis Medical, Triavascular, Vascutek Terumo.

So Dr Veith's article continues the tradition of defenses of physicians' and health care institutions' conflicts of interest based on logical fallacies and unbalanced and unsupported assertions.  Also, note that all the examples of such defenses we have discussed were made by people with their own financial relationships with drug, device, and/or biotechnology companies, although some of them disclosed these relationships.  I have yet to see a defense of such conflicts based on logic and evidence, or a defense of such conflicts made by someone who has absolutely no conflicts of his or her own. 

The currently prevalent relationships with health care corporations among academic physicians, researchers, and other decision makers and influencers in health care have been lucrative for them.  I have yet to see a coherent, logical argument that these relationships are good for patients, medical education, biomedical or clinical science, or public health made by anyone, much less someone who does not have such relationships.

I will note that the defenses of conflicts of interest begin to seem drearily similar.  Not only do they often use the same logical fallacies, but they repeat the same stale and unsupported arguments about the benefits of financial relationships with industry: that they foster "innovation," and that they provide better educational opportunities than unconflicted programs and educators.  We now know that the managed care industry has engineered stealth health policy advocacy campaigns that furnish talking points to "third parties" which may get caught up in the larger policy discourse (see posts here and here).  I wonder whether some such stealth health policy advocacy campaign by pharmaceutical, device and/or biotechnology companies seeded the discourse about conflicts of interest with some of the logical fallacies and unproven assertions that have become so familiar. 

We need to elevate our discourse about health care policy.  People involved in health policy discussions should at least disclose their conflicts of interest when making their points.  We should be very skeptical of  arguments and look carefully for the evidence and logic that supports them.  When we find that evidence and logic is lacking, be even more skeptical about who benefits from them.