American Psychiatric Association says no to industry funding for symposiums

doi:10.1136/bmj.b1426

Published 6 April 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1426
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1426

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American Psychiatric Association says no to industry funding for symposiums

Janice Hopkins Tanne

¹ New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The board of trustees of the American Psychiatric Association(APA) decided last month to phase out symposiums sponsored byindustry and meals at annual meetings.

The board did not say when it would end events funded by industry,and the association’s president, Nada Stotland, said thatindustry sponsorship might continue through 2010 (www.medpagetoday.com,26 Mar, "Psychiatry group plans phase-out of industry-sponsoredsymposia").

Dr Stotland said, "Although we took great care to avoid biasedreporting at all our symposia, we came to the conclusion thatthe only way to totally eliminate the risk is to have the symposiasupported by the APA alone."

Dr Stotland told the New York Times that the organisation hadcharged companies up to $50 000 (£34 000; ${euro}$ 37 000) forsponsoring a symposium, of which there were about 30 at annualmeetings. She told the newspaper that income from meetings accountedfor about 10% . . . [Full text of this article]