Physicians Practice - June 2008 - (Page 19) QUOTABLES “Families with a strong history of genetic disease will have one less worry about the circumstances they find themselves in, and hooray for that.” —Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, after passage of a federal law intended to prevent misuse of people’s “genetic profiles by employers and insurers.” GIFT BANS DEBATED Should physicians be banned from accepting money or other freebies from pharmaceutical companies? The debate is raging in Massachusetts, where lawmakers are indeed proposing such a ban. Under some versions contemplated by legislatures, a physician could (in theory) pay a fine as heavy as $5,000 and even go to jail for taking a pen or scarfing a slice of pharma-supplied pizza. Dennis Ausiello, chief of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and a director of Pfizer, is, naturally, opposed. His commentary on the subject can be read (for a price, unfortunately) here: www.bostonherald.com/ news/opinion/op_ed/ view.bg?articleid=1087609. “Under normal circumstances, drinking extra water is unnecessary. I want to relieve people of the burden of schlepping water bottles around all day long.” —Stanley Goldfarb, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and coauthor of a study finding virtually no evidence of health benefits to drinking eight glasses of water a day, in The New York Times. “We have moved from a system where every economic incentive was to provide more services to [a system] where all the incentives are for providing less care.” —Ron Pollack, president, Families USA, on the post-HMO paradigm shift in American healthcare. Some academic physicians, though, have been choosing to decline industry fees — a few of these even doing work for pharmaceutical companies pro We like this idea: Supermarket chain Safeway bono, reasoning allows customers to use their discount “club” card that the work they do in interpreting studies is to count the calories of the stuff they buy through important, but accepting money is too great a an online program: conflict of interest. A fascinating account of this trend can be found at www.nytimes.com. Just type http://shop.safeway.com/nutrition/ “citing ethics” in the Search field. It also recommends better food choices than GOOD GROCER what customers have bought. This debate will rage for the next couple of years. We suspect it will result in medical societies imposing guidelines that will include strict disclosure of, and limits on, the acceptance of gifts and fees from pharmaceutical companies. But not outright bans. THE FIT COMPANY More American companies are creating in-office fitness programs for employees as a way of improving workplace morale and reducing their own healthcare costs, according to the Baltimore Sun. Though no one is sure how common such programs are, the American Heart Association has begun promoting the idea with its own “fit company designation,” and employers seem to be embracing the concept. “We’ve come to recognize that healthier employees are happier employees, well-motivated employees and less costly employees,” Francis X. Kelly III, CEO of a Maryland insurance broker, told the Sun. His company started an employee weight-loss competition, added an in-office gym, and is trying to sell their own clients on employing similar programs. Beats the heck out of the also-increasingly-common punitive programs that try to force employees to adopt (or jettison) particular lifestyle choices. http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1087609 http://www.nytimes.com http://shop.safeway.com/nutrition/
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