Cleveland Clinic Discloses Doctors Financial Ties

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/business/03clinic.html?pagewanted=1&em

The Cleveland Clinic, one of the nation’s most prominent medical research centers, is making a complete disclosure of doctors’ and researchers’ financial ties available on its Web site, www.clevelandclinic.org. It will now publicly report the business relationships that any of its 1,800 staff doctors and scientists have with drug and device makers.

This comes as the nation’s doctors and hospitals are under mounting pressure to address potential financial conflicts of interest that can occur when they work closely with companies to develop and research new drugs and devices.
In American medicine, doctors’ links to industry are often hidden from public view, and critics argue that such relationships can taint the integrity of medical research and patient care. In one of the most recent controversies, a highly regarded and influential psychiatrist at Emory University, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff, drew criticism in October for failing to disclose at least $1 million in consulting fees from drug makers.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has brought Congressional scrutiny to the issue and introduced legislation that would require drug and device makers to divulge the payments they make to doctors. Some drug companies, including Merck and Eli Lilly, say they plan to starting publicly disclosing their payments to doctors next year.

Dr. Cosgrove, chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic, said that potential conflicts of interest need to be managed, not automatically eliminated, because working with industry encourages innovation by the clinic and its doctors.

Some experts wonder how useful the industry disclosures actually are to patients when they are told of a doctor’s industry ties before agreeing to take part in a research trial. A patient, they argue, may not know what to make of such information.

To me, this is quite analogous to attempts to curb political lobbying in D.C. by making earmark requests and the source of fundraising dollars more transparent to voters. Transparency is hyped as the fix to political corruption, but its still unclear whether it really stops "bad" behavior. Voters overwhelmingly disapporove of Congress in general (a dismal 32% as of Dec. 2008 http://mediamatters.org/items/200712130008), but often express approval of their own member of Congress. Many people simply don't care enough to look up the donor lists, and who can blame them? It's hardly enjoyable bedtime reading.

I wonder if patients will pay attention to this type of disclosure. And if they notice, will they care?