Few US medical schools and medical centres are disclosing industry ties

Few of the leading medical schools and hospitals in the United States tell the public about their academic members’ ties to the drug and device industry, although more institutions now require members to disclose this information to them, say the American Medical Student Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Prominent academic physicians who have not told their institutions about lucrative consulting arrangements with drug and device companies have been headline news in recent years in the US (BMJ 2009;338:a3188, doi:10.1136/bmj.a3188; BMJ 2009;339:b2725, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2725).

The trend is toward greater disclosure, said Kim Cunningham, a spokesperson for the American Medical Students Association. The association has compiled a scorecard of US medical schools’ …