The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) is increasing their enforcement of the current ACCME standards of commercial support according to a report in the New York Times by Duff Wilson Steps to Greater Accountability in Medical Education.
Within weeks they will be posting the names of CME providers and activities that violated rules against commercial bias. In addition, the ACCME will be reviewing a proposal that would require educators to notify doctors and furnish corrective materials when it is later found that CME activity was proved to have commercial bias.
The incidence of commercial bias is quite low with on 12 inquiries concerning commercial bias (out of over 100,000 activities) from 2008 – 2009 and only five of the activities were found to be bias.
What seems to have prompted a New York Times article on this is a complaint by Bernard Carroll, MD and outlined in his blog Health Care Renewal. Dr. Carroll had sent a 13 page letter to the ACCME about a program featuring his nemesis Charles Nemeroff, MD of Emory. Dr. Carroll complained on his blog that the ACCME took nine months to review the case but was sent a letter from the ACCME in September outlining that the program in question was found to be commercially biased and corrective action was taken.
The ACCME has been criticized in the past for not enforcing their existing rules. This is one more sign that the ACCME is taking their role very seriously.