University of Minnesota Medical School: Ban all gifts to doctors

The University of Minnesota Medical School is considering a very strict new conflict-of-interest policy. The far-reaching policy comes as congressional investigators and the U.S. Justice Department are probing ties between doctors and drug companies and medical device manufacturers—probes that have raised some difficult questions for the university. The Medical School's proposed policy digs deep and reaches far into the entrenched relationship between the drug and medical device industries and the university's doctors, researchers, and students, as well as the institution itself.