EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS AND THE BIOMEDICAL INDUSTRY

The relationship of physicians to biomedical industry has been a matter of concern and scrutiny by medical organizations, the public, industry, and government. 1-10 In a competitive marketplace, the biomedical industry must advertise its products to physician consumers. Nevertheless, gift-giving to physicians, industry support for education and research, and industry promotional activities that reward physicians can result in conflict of interest for physicians. A physician's clinical, educational, and research decisions should be based on scientific evidence and not be influenced by commercialism. Promotional materials developed by biomedical industry may not be designed to give physicians objective scientific data regarding a product. It is particularly disturbing that physicians may not be aware of the undue influence that promotional material and gift-giving has on their clinical decisions. 7 Acceptance of a gift from a biomedical company establishes a relationship between the physician and the company. This relationship may not be in the best interest of the patient and may, in fact, conflict with the physician's obligation to the patient. Furthermore, money spent on promotional materials and gift-giving to physicians ultimately is paid for by patients as part of the cost of the item. 6 The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine is concerned about the ethical conflicts arising from the relationship of physicians to biomedical industry. In this paper, we discuss three general issues related to physicians and the biomedical industry and recommend guidelines for the emergency physician. The three issues are as follows.