Published 11 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2347
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2347

News

Doctors’ group files legal charges against nine French doctors

Jeanne Lenzer

1 New York

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

A doctors’ organisation has filed legal charges against nine French "key opinion leaders" for allegedly failing to disclose their ties to drug manufacturers. The nine doctors are considered top authorities on a range of subjects, from menopause and diabetes care to Alzheimer’s disease.

The doctors’ group that filed the charges, Formindep (Formation Independante), is a non-profit organisation based in Roubaix, France, that promotes independent medical information. They filed the charges with the French professional authority, Ordre National des Médecins (a body to which all doctors have to belong), after they reviewed statements made by 150 doctors in 30 professional and lay media outlets during a one month period in the spring of 2008 and found that "not a single health professional declared any conflicts of interest."

In a 27 April statement, the group said, "These doctors’ medical expertise and ability to speak with confidence to the media make them the . . . [Full text of this article]


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Insufficiant information on the management of conflicts of interest at HAS
Laurent Degos
bmj.com, 25 Jun 2009 [Full text]
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