More on Industry Conflict of Interest

Just one week after Kathy Kirkland’s enlightening and thoughtful talk on industry conflict of interest at the SHEA Meeting, JAMA has published proposed recommendations for controlling conflict of interest with industry for professional medical associations. The authors note that the recommendations are rigorous and will likely be controversial. Nonetheless, these recommendations should be embraced. While physicians are generally aware of the role of industry in the arena of clinical care, it seems that in infection control industry’s role has gone largely unnoticed. Little has been written in the main stream media about this, with Andrew Pollack’s article in the New York Times last year a notable exception. Ted Eickhoff and I also wrote about the role of industry in the MRSA active surveillance debate in CID, which was subsequently criticized by APIC in a letter to the editor. Hopefully more attention will be drawn to this issue, which will raise awareness, a first step in reducing industry’s influence.