Harvard Medical School Committee To Meet To Address Conflict of Interest Policies

A committee formed to re-examine Harvard Medical School's conflict-of-interest policies will meet on Thursday, Dean Jeffrey Flier announced recently, the New York Times reports (Wilson, New York Times, 3/3). Harvard last month announced that it would fortify its conflict-of-interest policies. The school has received criticism over its conflict-of-interest policy. The American Medical Student Association gave Harvard an 'F' on its conflict-of-interest policy because it does not address company gifts or meals. Also, a group of students in 2008 succeeded in making a new policy requiring lecturers, faculty members and visiting professors to reveal financial interests in a company or treatment they discuss. Students say current enforcement of the policy is "spotty."

The school's current policy focuses on limiting research conflicts by enforcing certain practices such as barring faculty or family members from holding more than $30,000 worth of stock in publicly traded companies or any equity in privately held companies that sponsor their research. In addition, faculty and family cannot receive more than $20,000 annually in consulting or other fees (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 2/3).

The new committee will have 19 members, including three students, and will be advised by David Korn, a former dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine who last year helped the Association of American Medical Colleges create a conflict-of-interest policy model for medical schools.

Flier said he wants practice standards at Harvard akin to other leading medical schools. However, he said that he does not want to completely rid the school of payments from the industry, the government or charities. "One entirely appropriate source, if done properly, is industrial funds," Flier said. According to the Times, school officials view corporate support during the recession as "all the more crucial" because the university's endowment has lost 22% of its value since July 2008 and donations have declined.

The Times reports that several issues hinder efforts to reform Harvard's conflict-of-interest policies. According to the Times, complete reform is more difficult in part because the school does not own its teaching hospitals. In addition, Flier is "fairly new" and the previous dean "was such an industry booster that he served on a pharmaceutical company board." Furthermore, a "crackdown" on conflicts of interest could result in lost funding or faculty, the Times reports.

Student Involvement
More than 200 students and faculty at Harvard have formed a separate group dedicated to "exposing and curtailing the industry influence in their classrooms and laboratories, as well as in Harvard's 17 affiliated teaching hospitals and institutes," according to the Times. The students already have successfully enacted a requirement that all professors and lecturers must disclose industry ties, which no other leading medical school requires, the Times reports.

A smaller group of students has circulated a petition signed by about 100 people that calls for "continued interaction between medicine and industry" at the school. Laurie Glimcher, a professor who sits on the board of Bristol-Myers Squibb and who was paid almost $270,000 by the company in 2007, said industry money is necessary for research. Thomas Stossel, a Harvard Medical professor, said, "I think if you look at it with intellectual honesty, you see industry interaction has produced far more good than harm" (New York Times, 3/3).