{"id":32814,"date":"2013-01-29T14:22:41","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T19:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=32814"},"modified":"2013-01-29T14:22:41","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T19:22:41","slug":"good-news-bad-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2013\/01\/29\/good-news-bad-news\/","title":{"rendered":"good news &middot; bad news &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"justify\"><em><strong><font color=\"#200020\">It was the best of times&#8230;<\/font><\/strong><\/em>    <\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pharmalot.com\/2013\/01\/conflicts-policies-and-antidepressant-prescribing\/\">Conflicts Policies And Antidepressant Prescribing<\/a> <br \/>                  <strong><font color=\"#004400\">Pharmalot<\/font><\/strong><br \/>                            By Ed Silverman<br \/>         January 29th, 2013<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>Do  conflict of interest policies adopted by residency programs actually  work? To test this notion, a group of researchers examined prescribing  data for several widely promoted antidepressants and found that  psychiatrists who encountered restrictive policies were less likely to  prescribe the drugs than those who did not have to contend with such  policies. Specifically, the University of Pennsyvlania researchers compared  psychiatry residents who graduated in 2001, before such policies were  instituted, and 2008, when the Association of American Medical Colleges  developed consensus principles of conflict of interest policies and one  year after the American Medical Student Association began a &lsquo;PharmFree&rsquo;  scorecard. They found that, relative to 2001 graduates in the same residency  group, 2008 graduates in programs with &lsquo;maximally restrictive&rsquo; conflict  policies prescribed heavily marketed antidepressants significantly less  than 2008 graduates in programs with &lsquo;minimally restrictive&rsquo; and  &lsquo;moderately restrictive&rsquo; policies, or 4.3 percent and 3.6 percent,  respectively&#8230;<\/strong><\/sup><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>&ldquo;The study is the first of its kind to show that exposure to COI  policies for physicians during residency training &ndash; in this case,  psychiatrists &ndash; is effective in lowering their post-graduation rates of  prescriptions for brand medications, including heavily promoted and  brand reformulated antidepressants,&rdquo; the reseachers say in a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uphs.upenn.edu\/news\/News_Releases\/2013\/01\/coi\/\">statement<\/a>.<\/strong><\/sup><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pharmalot.com\/2013\/01\/conflicts-policies-and-antidepressant-prescribing\/psychiatry-coi-prescribing-2\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\" border=\"1\" title=\"psychiatry coi prescribing\" alt=\"psychiatry coi prescribing\" src=\"http:\/\/www.pharmalot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/psychiatry-coi-prescribing1-300x167.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>The  researchers, whose study appears in Medical Care, analyzed the  proportion of prescriptions written by 1,652 psychiatrists, about half  of whom graduated in 2001 and the others in 2008. They accounted for  901,805 prescriptions written for antidepressants in 2009 [<a href=\"http:\/\/journals.lww.com\/lww-medicalcare\/Abstract\/2013\/02000\/Does_Exposure_to_Conflict_of_Interest_Policies_in.13.aspx\">here is the abstract<\/a>]&#8230;<\/strong><\/sup><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>&ldquo;Contact with the pharmaceutical industry may have important  informational benefits for physicians. And, by exposing trainees to  industry representatives, we may be helping them prepare to navigate  these relationships after graduation,&rdquo; says Andrew Epstein, research  associate professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at  the University of Pennsylvania, and lead author on the study. &ldquo;Nevertheless, while these relationships may be useful in some ways,  our study clearly shows that implementation of COI policies have helped  shield physicians from the often persuasive aspects of pharmaceutical  promotion,&rdquo; he concluded&#8230;<\/strong><\/sup><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>Last year, the AMSA noted that more medical schools are adopting  policies that warrant good grades. In the most recent annual scorecard  last March, 102 medical schools out of a total of 152 &ndash; or 67 percent &ndash;  were given a grade of A or B for their policies governing interactions  between drugmakers and faculty and students [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pharmalot.com\/2012\/03\/more-med-schools-pass-conflict-of-interest-test\/\">back story<\/a>].<\/strong><\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">This is my favorite kind of study because it addresses a question I didn&#8217;t know the answer to. Can you change prescribing behavior&nbsp; by restricting access to pharmaceutical representatives. Looks like the answer is &quot;Yes!&quot; <\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><em><strong><font color=\"#200020\">and the worst of times&#8230;<\/font><\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.technologytransfertactics.com\/content\/audio\/catc\/\" target=\"_self\">Commercialization as a Tenure Criterion: A Powerful Incentive for Faculty Inventors<\/a><br \/>   <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Technology Transfer Tactics <\/font><\/strong><br \/>   <sup><strong>Formats: <\/strong>Live Webinar, On-Demand Video, DVD, or PDF Transcript<\/sup><br \/>   March 19, 2013<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>The push for commercialization of university research has become more  like a giant shove. Federal and state governments are pinning their  hopes on it, economic development agencies work hard to enable it, and  university presidents demand it. Pitch competitions, accelerators,  funding schemes, outreach efforts, partnerships, incubators, and  mentoring programs abound, all trying to encourage it. But there is one  glaring, gigantic disconnect in the innovation ecosystem: <em>tenure policy<\/em>.<\/strong><\/sup><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>While the drumbeat sounds for new models of entrepreneurship and  commercialization support, a very old model &mdash; steeped in the academic  traditions of yesteryear &mdash; presents a major barrier to realizing the  full potential of university innovations. Tenure policies, which reward  publishing and teaching but do nothing to incentivize commercialization,  arguably represent the single biggest missing link in the innovation  ecosystem that so many now agree is critical to economic growth, jobs,  and global competitiveness.<\/strong><\/sup><\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup><strong>These policies &mdash; if they are adjusted to take commercial-focused  research into account &mdash; also represent a tremendous untapped opportunity  for universities to unleash a deluge of research with market potential,  by simply rewarding the behavior that forms the essential foundation  for the dynamic innovation activity the world is clamoring for. But  changing the entrenched system is anything but simple&#8230;<\/strong><\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">When I got this link, I thought it was a Satire or a joke someone was playing on me. My mind started generating titles like &quot;Conflict of Interest: Making it work for you!&quot;, &quot;How to get the most out of your ghost-witer&quot;, or &quot;Key Opinion Leader: Making a reputation you can sell&quot;. But then I realized they were dead serious. There&#8217;s a subgroup in the specialty of psychiatry that is a living testimony to what&#8217;s wrong with this idea. Oy vey!   <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was the best of times&#8230; Conflicts Policies And Antidepressant Prescribing Pharmalot By Ed Silverman January 29th, 2013 Do conflict of interest policies adopted by residency programs actually work? To test this notion, a group of researchers examined prescribing data for several widely promoted antidepressants and found that psychiatrists who encountered restrictive policies were less [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32814"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32824,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32814\/revisions\/32824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}