Conflict-of-interest in oncology: prevalence, trends, and potential harms

Despite ongoing concerns and well-publicized scandals, financial conflict-of-interest between US physicians and the drug industry remains common. US physicians receive over $2 billion in personal (non-research) payments from the drug industry annually. Medical oncologists are one of the highest earning specialist groups, especially influential "opinion leaders" who often conduct clinical trials and write clinical practice guidelines. This talk presents and summarizes findings regarding the distribution of industry money across oncologists, cancer hospitals, and - potentially of greatest concern - clinical practice guideline-writing panels. The presentation also shows recent and emerging evidence regarding the potential negative impact of industry money on clinical care delivery.

COMMENTS IN CHAT:

syed Ahmad: Its an independent journal from France
syed Ahmad: Prescrire
Leeza Osipenko: https://english.prescrire.org/en/Summ...
Rita: In the April edition of Prescrire International we just published a review of Prescrire's ratings of new drugs in 2023 https://english.prescrire.org/en/81/1...
Bobby MULROONEY: Prescrire is the French verb "to prescribe". Pronounced Preh-skreer
Adriane Fugh-Berman: No evidence that Open Payments reduced COi. See our article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Marek Czajkowski: One comment on Public shaming: I have seen some journals/articles define COI as "Any potential conflict of interest that might cause embarrassment to any of the authors if it were not to be declared and were to emerge after eg. publication
Marek Czajkowski: So it seems that shame is already recognized as a solution
Rita: In Europe we have HTA bodies making appraisals of medicines. In the USA, there is ICER. There is also ASCO. Do you have a comment on the job these organisations are doing (would you qualify this as independent info) ? Or do they also impacted by industry paiements?
margaret:

however many people are unembarrassable. here is a quote from my phd: In the meantime I had begun to wonder why the Sunshine Acts of the US, where mandatory publication of declarations of interest were stipulated, seemed to be showing little impact (46). I was reading early psychological research within the management literature in the US suggesting that declarations of interests may have paradoxical effects in relation to trust. In a conversation with a senior colleague, in a hospital-based speciality, I was told that data released in Disclosure UK launched what he described as a "willy waving competition” where “alpha males suddenly found out who was earning more than them”. Instead of embarrassment over earnings, as I had expected, the response was that of competition between senior doctors for more pharma funding.
Marek Czajkowski:

If you mean your PhD thesis is available online somewhere?
margaret: if I pass the oral component! will tweet if it happens!
John Grogan: Administrative audit?
Michael: It’s because when one dies of iatrogenic harm, one dies alone. When there is a critical event like a plane crash, there is usually a public inquiry.