This article discusses one more way that the industry of pharmaceutics and medical devices affects medicine, namely, by financing on-going medical educational activities with the objective of promoting the use of treatments that are profitable to these companies. On-going medical education is required in many states of the U.S.A. as a condition for physicians to renew their licenses to practice medicine. The U.S. Congress is discussing how to regulate the matter in the context of the national health system reform now under discussion in that country.
Pharmaceutical industry; medical education; doctor-patient relationship