The conference summary was released nine months in advance of the actual report at least in part to influence an upcoming Institute of Medicine (IOM) report (2009) and the meeting of the Committee on Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education and Practice. The next public meeting is scheduled for March 13-14th, 2008 in Washington DC (see attached IOM public Meeting Invitation).
The Institute of Medicine is an influential part of the National Academy of Sciences, which was charted by Congress in 1863 to advise the government on important scientific and technical questions.
One of the co-sponsors of the IOM committee on the conflict of interest is none other than the Josiah Macy Foundation. The makeup of the IOM committee contains 6 of 17 members (including the chairman) who have publicly stated strong pro-regulatory positions on faculty conflict of interest.
The IOM program has the appearance of being stacked against the pharmaceutical industry commercial support for CME. First, participants were sent only one outside article as part of the conference packet: Health industry practices that create conflict of interest: a health policy proposal for academic medical centers, Brennan, JAMA 2006. Second, Harvey V. Fineburg, MD, PhD, President of the IOM was a Macy conference participant and we have been told that IOM has rejected reasonable requests for presentations from academic views other than the Macy participants at the IOM meetings. Third, the IOM committee itself is closely aligned with the Association of Academic Medical Centers and has many common members. Fourth, many of the prominent members of the group are consistent critics of pharma industry involvement in medicine, including, David Blumenthal (Institute for Health Policy, Harvard), Jordan Cohen (President Emeritus AAMC), Catherine DeAngelis (Editor and Chief JAMA).
The Association of Academic Medical Centers Conflict of Interest Taskforce is now in final editing of their new recommendations on faculty conflict of interest. It includes many Macy participants and will probably be similarly biased against the industry involvement with academics .