The church-and-state separation of drugmakers and continuing medical education [1] continues apace. Now it's Stanford's medical school that's refusing to take industry funding for specific CME programs or courses. The school won't accept money or in-kind help like equipment or supplies or services. Nor will it let for-profit CME companies that take industry money deliver their courses on campus.

Stanford joins a handful of other institutions that have curtailed their industry-funded CME recently. Memorial Sloan-Kettering cut itself off of industry funding for CME, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reminds us, and Pfizer recently came at the problem from a different direction by saying it would no longer fund CME courses [2] offered by for-profit companies.

What will Stanford accept? Well, it will take contributions to a pool of money that the university can then allocate as it sees fit. About half a dozen other med schools have created similar pools. It's an idea that could catch on; in fact, the CME accreditation body has been considering establishing a centralized pool for industry contributions. The money would be divvied up by medical societies.

- read the WSJ Health Blog post [3]
- see the New York Times story [4]

Related Articles:
AMA won't ban industry-funded education
[5]Arms twisted, pharma promises CME disclosure [6]
[7]Med schools tight with drugmakers [8]
GSK to report organization grants [9]
Pfizer to stop funding for-profit CME [10]