Harvard Revises Conflicts of Interest

After nearly a year and a half of discussion, the Harvard University faculty of medicine committee released a new report Wednesday revising and clarifying the existing policy on conflicts of interest for its 11,000 faculty members. The subcommittee was part of university-wide group that simultaneously released a set of principles intended to guide the policies of all Harvard schools.

Under the new policy, the medical school will prohibit its  faculty from delivering promotional talks for drug and medical device makers; accepting personal gifts, travel, or meals; and placing stricter limits regarding earning outside income. The recommended policy revisions and restrictions will be put into effect and practice starting in Jan. 1.

"Within and outside industry, many recognize that industry and academia must seek a new model of academia industry collaboration to achieve greater success at discovery and development of new treatments while fully protecting academic values and those of the medical profession," said Dean Jeffrey Flier, MD, dean of Harvard Medical School, in a statement.

"It is incumbent upon us to create a culture that is open to creative new approaches to collaboration on scientific development, based on transparency, rather than one that makes novel interactions more difficult," he added.

Harvard, like several other medical schools across the country, has come under scrutiny at the federal level in recent years over financial ties between some of its faculty and pharmaceutical and device companies. In 2008, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, investigated several Harvard physicians on charges that they were receiving payments from drug companies while receiving federal dollars to research that company's product.

Grassley was author of legislation, which was included in the new healthcare reform law, requiring pharmaceutical and device companies to report quarterly the money they give to physicians to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The medical school's new conflict-of-interest report follows a report issued just several weeks ago from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) that urged U.S. teaching hospitals to establish policies that manage financial

relationships between physicians and industry. Less than 1% of teaching hospitals at the time were found to have adopted policies that addressed conflict of interest in clinical care.

Among the conflict-of-interest recommendations included in the Harvard Medical School report are:

• Streamlining the existing medical school conflict-of-interest  policy and disclosure forms and processes.

• Developing an education and disclosure-monitoring system to assist faculty with understanding the new policy and disclosure requirements.

• Publicly disclosing all relevant faculty financial interests on the medical school's Catalyst Profiles website.

• Prohibiting all personal gifts, travel or meals from industry, other than travel and meals in the course of allowed activities.

• Prohibiting faculty participation in industry speakers bureaus or  accepting compensation for a speaking engagement that limits the faculty member?s "intellectual independence" in presenting content. 

• Restricting industry advertising and exhibitions at continuing medical education events, and ensuring that industry programs and exhibits are marketed separately from Harvard programs. 

• Limiting sponsorship of a research project, regardless of the type of research, by a business in which a faculty member holds equity. (The prohibition is absolute if the business is privately held; if the business is publicly traded, then a faculty member?s financial interest in the company cannot exceed $30,000). 

• Prohibiting clinical research on a technology owned by or licensed to a business from which the faculty member receives more that $10,000 in annual income (down from $20,000).

• Reconfirming the already existing restrictions upon guest and ghost authorship.