Rules governing drug firm CME sponsorship under review

An Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education task force is expected to propose revisions to ACCME's "standards for commercial support."

By Jay Greene, AMNews staff. Aug. 6, 2001.

Chicago -- Should pharmaceutical companies continue to sponsor continuing medical education conferences?

If the answer is "yes," then another question follows. Should rules governing sponsorship of CME activities be tightened to give the public and physician community greater confidence that there is a clear separation between drug company marketing and essential medical education?

A four-member task force will address these and other questions during a year-long process to revise the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education's "Standards for Commercial Support." The standards are a six-page set of rules that accredited CME providers must follow when accepting donations from pharmaceutical companies.

During the last several years, questions have arisen both from the public and from some physicians about whether drug company involvement in CME activity planning unduly influences physician learning.

Under the standards, drug companies are allowed to provide some input into CME activities. However, "the design and production of educational activities shall be the ultimate responsibility of the accredited provider," according to the standards.

But in the 10 years since the standards were created to head off government regulation, the amount of drug company funding for CME activities has grown steadily. About half of the $1.2 billion costs of CME are now underwritten by drug firms with some 522 accredited CME providers accepting an average of $686,000 in donations.

"The number of providers who are currently out of compliance with the various elements of the standards causes concern about the clarity of the regulations and the existing processes for their dissemination," said Barbara Barnes, MD, president of the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education, based in Birmingham, Ala. [...]