Supporting Innovation and the Dissemination of Knowledge
WELCOME TO ACRE
Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE) is an organization of medical professionals dedicated to the advancement of patient care through productive collaboration with industry and its counterparts. ACRE seeks to define and promote balanced policies at academic medical centers and within government that will enhance rather than interfere with our highly valued collaboration. In addition, ACRE will identify and train next generation of researchers and educators.
The Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators was established entirely with member funding.
DEBATING INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PHYSICIANS AND INDUSTRY - AUDIENCE MEMBERS NEEDED
The John Stossel Show on Fox Business is taping a show entitled, “Hands Off My Meds!” on February 11 at 9:00 AM (http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/). The show will feature two leading voices in this debate: Drs. Tom Stossel and Arnold Relman from Harvard Medical School. The show is structured to be an interactive dialogue between the panelists and audience members. It will be a good opportunity for physicians, patients and advocacy organizations to potentially weigh-in on pressing healthcare issues.
The panelists will be debating, among other things, the current trend at academic medical centers of restricting physicians from interacting with pharmaceutical companies. Although this debate initially focused only on sales and marketing activities, it has continued to spread to encompass restrictions on provision of educational grants, consulting agreements, and even research interactions, and now many states are drafting and adopting legislation based on the examples set at academic medical centers. Most recently, the Governor of NY proposed legislation that would restrict such interactions, which directly follows the arguments that originated in the academic medical center debate.
Tom Stossel, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, is an active researcher and clinician and has published extensively on the stifling effects of over-regulation on innovation and ultimately on patient care and will argue against additional restrictions and debunk the myth that financial incentives corrupt the practice of medicine. Arnold Relman will be arguing the opposing view – that due to profit motive pharmaceutical companies spend most of their resources on marketing activities and me-too drugs of little value, and that more regulations are needed to prevent physicians from being bribed into prescribing high-cost medicines.
Given the high level of audience participation, it is anticipated that there will be a strong turn-out among those that believe physicians and industry should not collaborate. Thus, the producers are looking for individuals, especially physicians, patients and patient advocates, who believe in the value of collaboration to be members of the audience.
If you would like to be part of the audience, please e-mail Diann Rohde at diann.rohde@diannrohdeassociates.com