While they still haven't passed a law forcing drug companies and medical device firms to disclose payments to doctors--as some influential legislators still hope to do--that doesn't mean lawmakers are letting the subject rest on Capitol Hill. In fact, they're keeping the heat on high.
This week, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Herb Kohl (D-WI) sent requests for information on whether Columbia University and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation have received money from the medical-device industry. The letters follow a similar investigation that kicked off a few months ago, in which Sen. Kohl sent a letter asking the American College of Cardiology to explain some aspects of its relationship with CRF.
The senators want to know whether research physicians affiliated with these institutions received medical-device industry payoffs. Grassley and Kohl also would like to know more about the Cardiovascular Research Foundation's financial support for an annual conference that just happens to promote cardiac devices and techniques. (Did we mention that CRF just happens to get funding from medical device manufacturers like Medtronic and Boston Scientific Corp.?) They'd also like more data on financial relationships between professors of medicine and cardiac-device companies featured at the conference.
Several individual states have already passed laws requiring similar disclosures, including Vermont, Maine, Minnesota and West Virginia. If the Physician Payments Sunshine Act passes, meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies or medical device makers would face similar requirements everywhere in the U.S.
From the Wall Street Journal "Sens. Chuck Grassley and Herb Kohl are making a habit of delving into financial ties between high-profile doctors and the drug and device industries.
The latest salvo came today, as the senators sent letters to Columbia University and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, asking about payments from stent makers to the institutions and affiliated doctors.
CRF’s founder, Martin Leon, as well as its current chairman, Gregg Stone, are both stent specialists affiliated with Columbia, and both are among the doctors listed by name in the letters. The foundation receives funding from device makers, among other sources, and conducts research.
The letters also ask for info about ties to a few companies in particular, including Abbott, Medtronic, Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson — the four shops that sell stents in the U.S."
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