#Massachusetts cares if #doctors have conflicts of interest, but do #patients care?

The Globe offers a peek at the drug company marketing/meals at smaller hospitals Years after many big academic medical centers cracked down on industry perks, drug companies still regularly buy meals for doctors affiliated with smaller hospitals, a new analysis shows, with some physicians receiving dozens of lunches and dinners in a single year. At a number …

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Former NEJM editor Arnold Relman dies at 91

See Storify for updates.  Arnold Relman, the former New England Journal of Medicine editor, has died. From Bryan Marquard at the Globe:  Eloquent and forceful on the page or the podium, Dr. Arnold Relman led the New England Journal of Medicine for more than 13 years, raising a sometimes lonely voice to warn about the …

Boston docs on debate over cholesterol screening for kids

A couple of Boston-area docs weigh in on charges of industry influence in the debate over whether to test kids for cholesterol.  From the Globe: CHICAGO — Should all US children be tested for high cholesterol? Doctors are still debating that question months after a government-appointed panel recommended widespread screening that would lead to prescribing …

Globe:More transparency needed from Harvard on misconduct

In a staff editorial, The Globe calls on Harvard to offer more information about the scientific misdeeds of  one of its star psychology researchers. For more on the case and other local news on scientific misconduct, click here for Nature Network Boston post.   THERE’S CLEARLY something wrong with some of Harvard psychology professor Marc Hauser’s …

Undoing: BU aging study, MA disclosure laws

The take-down of the BU study began Wednesday and continues. More here on Nature Network Boston. Also, the Mass House of Representatives voted to repeal the state's disclosure law, which requires drug makers to report donation to researchers. From AP via the Globe: House leaders defended the vote to repeal the ban, approved just two …

Can a computer save you from an extra x-ray?

Two news round ups today. First, check out the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review, hosted by Boston’s own David Williams at  The Health Business Blog.  As he reports: It’s a wonderful day in the wonkerhood, with so much health care policy fodder to chomp on. Let’s jump right in. Also, here’s some local …

Radio Boston: The Influence of Pharma on Docs

WBUR's Radio Boston takes on the ever-present issue of the influence of drug makers on docs. Listen on their web site or today at 3. Guests include: Jerry Avorn, M.D., PChief of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and author of Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and …

Partners limits questionable moonlighting for docs

The New York Times reports: Senior officials at the two hospitals, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals in Boston, must limit their pay for serving as outside directors to what the policy calls “a level befitting an academic role” — no more than $5,000 a day for actual work for the board. Some had …

Lilly funds 60 Boston docs

From The Boston Globe: At least 60 Massachusetts doctors collectively have earned more than a half-million dollars this year as speakers paid by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. - including two Boston Medical Center physicians whose participation is being reviewed for possible violation of a hospital policy against marketing activities by its doctors. After …

Harvard muzzles med students

Sept. 11 update -- Harvard backs down Do not even get BHN started on the topic of free speech on campus. Let's  just say that many thin-skinned universities apply the concept of academic freedom very selectively. Harvard Medical School is apparently one of them. When doctors-in-training got a copy of their updated student handbook , …