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Annals of Family Medicine 8:354-358 (2010)
© 2010 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.
doi: 10.1370/afm.1140
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Essay

Professional Medical Organizations and Commercial Conflicts of Interest: Ethical Issues

Howard Brody, MD, PhD

Institute for the Medical Humanities and Department of Family Medicine, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Howard Brody, MD, PhD, Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Blvd, Galveston, TX 77555-1311, habrody{at}utmb.edu

ABSTRACT

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has recently been criticized for accepting a large corporate donation from Coca-Cola to fund patient education on obesity prevention. Conflicts of interest, whether individual or organizational, occur when one enters into arrangements that reasonably tempt one to put aside one’s primary obligations in favor of secondary interests, such as financial self-interest. Accepting funds from commercial sources that seek to influence physician organizational behavior in a direction that could run counter to the public health represents one of those circumstances and so constitutes a conflict of interest. Most of the defenses offered by AAFP are rationalizations rather than ethical counterarguments. Medical organizations, as the public face of medicine and as formulator of codes of ethics for their physician members, have special obligations to adhere to high ethical standards.

Key Words: Bioethics • conflict of interest • societies • public health




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TRACK Comments:

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Long Live The Corporate Alliance Program
Richard L Backman, MD
Annals of Family Medicine, 21 Jul 2010 [Full text]
A Sticky Situation – the AAFP alliance with Coca Cola
Sean C. Lucan, MD, MPH, MS
Annals of Family Medicine, 26 Jul 2010 [Full text]
Definitely the "Real Thing": being dupes
Jane L. Murray, MD
Annals of Family Medicine, 4 Aug 2010 [Full text]
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