In a sidelight from another medical field, TIME Magazine has an interesting article regarding the fallout from a US DOJ investigation into kickbacks in the filed of Orthopedics. We note that the Psychiatric field is probably also great fodder for this sort of thing. But the DOJ is probably just getting warmed up ....
The past year has been a tough one for the business of orthopedics, one in which it has taken a hard, public slap from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
The DOJ, you see, has discovered the "relationships" that so many orthopedic companies have established with orthopedic surgeons. Companies give money to doctors to test products, to help design or tout products and sometimes just to use a particular product (as in kickback). Orthopedists are hardly the only doctors paid by medical companies, but when the sheer amount of money being given to orthopedists came out of the shade into the sharp San Francisco sunshine last week, it did make quite a few of us blink.
The DOJ's slap was felt acutely by everyone at the convention. No more free dinners, shoulder bags, flashlights and pens. Way fewer models in leotards draped across operating tables and traction equipment. A new ruling requires every research presentation to begin with full disclosure of all monetary relationships the speaker has with any company. Every single fully trained doctor I heard speak was getting paid by a company; many of the bigger-name doctors were getting paid by three or four. How much money was still the subject of gossip — the exact amount is not required to be broadcast in these podium confessionals. The DOJ has, however, ordered companies to list the doctors in their employ, as well as the amounts paid them, on their websites. Judging by those figures, it adds up to plenty. And it got our attention at AAOS. Some doctors thought it immoral; others lamented the doubt it cast on the integrity of research. But I think most just wanted in.
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