JAMA Wants To Restrict Competition for Pharma Dollars

Many elite, academic doctors would like to believe that they can create a world where human beings do not influence other human beings. This makes them ashamed of their profession's relationship with research-based drug companies. They believe that any item or communication from a pharmaceutical representative, be it a branded pen or an all-expenses-paid conference in the Caribbean, corrupts. If such contacts were forbidden, only scientific evidence would influence doctors' behavior.

But this dream-like state has a more down-to-earth element to it as well, especially from the elite medical journals, which profit from advertising. The Editor-in-Chief of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, has collaborated with academic medical colleagues to pen an opinion in the journal which states that professional medical associations (PMAs):

".....should work toward a complete ban on pharmaceutical and medical device
industry funding ($0), except for income from journal advertising and exhibit
hall fees."

Well, I guess that will make JAMA's advertising sales staff happy!

But I should be more courteous: the writers did not demand government action to restrict PMA's financing, but have simply encouraged their profession to accept these restrictions voluntarily.

Nevertheless, artificially limiting contact between inventors and doctors will reduce investors' willingness to put their capital at risk in pharmaceutical and medical-device enterprises, as I have previously described.