Drug Company Support of Continuing Medical Education

The left has been on a campaign to end such support. The efforts get reviewed, here. These include self-regulation by companies, anti-kickback enforcement by the Justice Department. They further propose ending all commercial support, refusing to accredit any sponsored activity, allowing contributions only to central depositories, to be run by left wing ideologues and to plunder them, increasing disclosure requirements. The JAMA authors find the current situation, "... at best very troubling."

There is only thing missing. The fact of any harm shown either to patients, or to costs.

There are a couple of problems not discussed in the left biased JAMA.

1) These measures interfere with clinical judgment, and violate about 6 Supreme Court decisions holding for a presumption favoring clinical decisions. The most famous is Roe v Wade.

2) There is a racist component. No one cares about the use of brand medications for middle class white people. When it comes to minorities on the public insurance, doctors cannot be trusted to control themselves. They helplessly write for brand names after receiving a pen or a sandwich. This implies that minorities need only generic medications with troubling side effects, that could not get approved by the FDA with today's standards, that pet owners would refuse.