Influential body urges ban on gifts at US medical schools

The NY times reports that the Association of American Medical Colleges has drawn up a model policy that would ban drug companies from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff and students in all 129 of the nation’s medical colleges. In the past most medical colleges have implemented recommendations made by the Association.

The policy seeks to deal with the conflict of interest and and inappropriate influence that drug companies have when the get involved with the education of future medical proffessionals.

Interestingly the task force that drew up the model policy had a number of representatives from the industry, itself including the chief executives of Pfizer and Eli Lilly