Conflict-of-interest rules for medical schools lag, survey says

Academic medical centers are increasingly adopting policies designed to clamp down on potential conflicts of interest posed by industry payments to individual doctors or researchers. But they have been slower to put in place rules governing payments to the institutions themselves, including the four medical schools in Massachusetts, according to a survey to be published tomorrow in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A team led by Eric G. Campbell of Massachusetts General Hospital found that only 38 percent of the medical schools responding to a 2006 questionnaire had an institutional conflict-of-interest policy and 37 percent said they were on their way to putting one in place.

Eighty-six of the 125 US medical schools answered questions about what rules they had for financial interests of the schools that might affect the conduct of research. That could include royalties from licensing agreements or equity holdings in drug companies or other businesses.

At three of Massachusetts's four medical schools, institutional policies are works in progress. At the fourth, issues are considered case by case.

-Harvard University is working on new policies to address the issue as it relates to the medical school, according to university spokesman B.D. Colen. The work was delayed during recent changes in leadership, he said in an e-mailed statement, but will move ahead in the months ahead.

-Tufts University School of Medicine’s institutional policy is nearly complete, spokeswoman Christine Fennelly said.

-University of Massachusetts Medical School has been working on its institutional policy for the past few months, spokesman Mark L. Shelton said.

At Boston University, there is no general policy for its School of Medicine or the university, Ara Tahmassian, associate vice president for research compliance, said in an interview. Any case that raises questions is reviewed by the Institutional Compliance Committee, on which he sits.

In a companion editorial by David J. Rothman of Columbia University, both BU and UMass were singled out on a list of 10 academic medical centers for their no-tolerance conflict-of-interest policies that ban gifts or payments to clinicians. They could serve as models for other academic medical centers that want to diminish the influence of drug and medical device makers, he writes. But when it comes to the universities, he asks whether they should be their own watchdogs.

“At a time when federal research funding is declining and competition for philanthropic gifts is intensifying, universities may not be eager to promulgate policies that would restrict their freedom to maneuver,” he writes.