Cleveland Clinic to reveal docs with lucrative drug company ties

December 4, 2008

For years, doctors didn’t bother to reveal profitable ties to drug and device makers: either no one questioned them or the relationships were hush-hush. But now that those financial arrangements are the subject of a congressional investigation and debate among medical journal editors and patients, some physicians are voluntarily cutting their pharma ties, and one of the country’s top medical centers has vowed to come clean by disclosing the names of their docs doctors on drug company payrolls. The goal: to avoid charges of masking potential conflicts of interest. (Scientific American)