CME watchdogs:
Sens. Max Baucus and
Charles Grassley
The U.S. Senate Committee on
Finance took direct aim at the continuing medical
education community in April in a published report that claimed
pharmaceutical companies use financial contributions to improperly
influence CME programs, making some little more than advertising
campaigns to promote their medications.
The detailed 106-page report, which
follows a two-year investigation by the Senate committee, found
that between 2004 and 2005, 24 percent of 76 accredited CME
providers were in violation of standards established by the
Chicago-based Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical
Education.
Committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus
(D-Mont.) and ranking member Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), in
a joint statement regarding the report’s findings, said the
committee “concluded that the pharmaceutical industry has focused
more on compliance with guidance for educational grants, but risks
still exist for kickbacks, veiled advertising of drugs, efforts to
bias clinical protocols and off-label promotion.” In addition, they
charged that ACCME has not taken a sufficiently active role in
overseeing CME programs.
In an April 27 letter to Murray
Kopelow, chief executive of ACCME, the committee questioned ACCME’s
role in the review and accreditation of CME providers, and voiced
concern that the council relied too heavily on information provided
by the CMEs themselves, rather than conducting its own research and
investigation. “It appears that compliance with ACCME standards
still allows CME providers to accommodate the business interests of
their commercial sponsors and affords drug companies the ability to
target their grant funding at programs likely to support sales of
their products,” the letter stated.
The report, and any possible course of
action taken by the committee to force new industry guidelines,
could have significant implications for medical meeting planners
and the CME community, which so far has escaped intense government
scrutiny. In 2005, the pharmaceutical industry contributed more
than $1 billion to support CME grants as well as medical
meetings.
In an online news release to its
members posted May 3, ACCME acknowledged that the committee made
“content-valid observations” regarding making CME independent of
commercial interests, and said that while the council stands by its
current process, it will be looking into how to strengthen its
accreditation process going forward.