Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Senator Kohl Targets Commercial CME in Hearing Tomorrow


It was only a matter of time before the U.S. Senate decided to shine a national spotlight on one of the more corrupt sectors of the nation's economy: industry-sponsored continuing medical education (CME).

Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis) has just issued this
press release announcing a hearing entitled "Medical Research and Education: Higher Learning or Higher Earning?" It will take place Wednesday, July 29, at 2 p.m., at 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington DC. You can view it live on the web by going to the Special Committee on Aging's website.

To view the all-star line up of those providing testimony, see the press release link above. I think it is safe to say that there will be some very strong testimony about the plethora of sham "educational" programs that are in reality marketing exercises for the drug companies.

While I will not be there in person, I was invited to provide written testimony, which I will post after the hearing itself.

I encourage all of you to take some time out of your schedules tomorrow to watch the webcast (hey, it's summer--just cut out of work early). I anticipate that this will be a historic event in the world of medical education.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will your testimony make mention of the disproportionate amount of corrupt CME that occurs among your own psychiatry colleagues? At the very least it would be dishonest of you to continue your usual drumbeat of portraying privately held CME companies as the major accomplice of pharma when, in fact, the most egregious cases have occurred in CME offered by academic institutions.

Anonymous said...

Why don't Congressional hearings adhere to the same strict fair balanced standards that CME activities strive to? From my seat, it seems pretty one sided and not fair-balanced at all. In my opinion, Dr. Nissen is by no way a CME "expert".