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Harvard speakers will be off Irish agendas

First Medical conference speakerPlanning a new product launch or a medical meeting? Seeking a prestigious speaker from across the Atlantic? Well, if your chief investigator or top international KOL is based at Harvard Medical School, you better get your skates on and get them over to the Emerald Isle before January 1st 2011. That’s the date on which the renowned institution implements a new conflicts of interest policy that prohibits faculty members from giving promotional talks for drug or device makers. The new regulations also rule out payment for travel and meals.

The Boston Globe, which broke the story, reports that Harvard will allow consulting work. However, income from those jobs will be limited and payments of at least $5,000 will have to be reported and posted on the medical school’s website. Dr Robert Mayer, who co-chaired the committee that wrote the new policy, said the rules are designed to keep Harvard doctors from appearing to be too close to industry. "We're anxious to be viewed publicly as doing what's in the best interest of our patients,'' Mayer told the newspaper.

Harvard is just the latest medical school to establish stricter rules for faculty and teaching-hospital staff. There's a wave of new conflicts policies, fuelled in part by scrutiny from the US Congress. Leading the charge there has been a Republican Senator from Iowa, named Charles Grassley. He has revealed a series of too-close-for-comfort industry/KOL relationships and, in the past, specifically investigated some financial dealings involving Harvard-based doctors. Interestingly, Harvard Medical School was so affected by that negative publicity that it took steps to meet Senator Grassley and to present details of their new policy in person.

Read the Boston Globe report here

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