Evidence Based Rehab

Can Physician-Industry Relationships Can Be Ethically Established?

Theres been some recent push in the media pointing out shady deals (and here, here, and here)between MD's and companies that manufacture the components and drugs they use. The link at the very top, a blog entry from Evidence in Motion brings up the issue of full physician disclosure to their patients. While it gets harder and harder for us to sell a patient a $10 brace, the AAOS, AMA, on the federal government seem to have been looking the other way while a few MD's were making significant income from "kickbacks" and use of unproven treatments that they control and recommend to their patients.

Now the point shouldn't be to just bash these MD's but to learn from this situation and encourage change from our physicians and the federal government. We need to police our own health care industry if we are going to regain control over health care costs and immoral practice.

Labels: AAOS, AMA, kickbacks, physicians