Propose an alternative approach to ensure that CME is provided without a conflict of interest.

pul to Sponsorship of Continuing Education In response to increasing criticism over its sponsorship of physician education courses and the sugge ence on doctors prescriptions and procedures the druomaker Pfizer announced in July 2008 that it would not pay marketing communications companies to arrange continuing medical education (CME) Courses, which doctors must take to maintain their licenses. Pfizer said it would support medical education on when it was put on by hospitals and professional medical associations Zimmer Hold- Ings, a medical device manufacturer that manufactures hip, knee, and elbow Implants, suspended funding of all CME activity. The company said it will restrict the way it funds courses in the future by identifying an independent third party, such as a professional society, to organize educational programs. "We understand that even the appearance of conflicts in CME is damaging and we are determined to take actions that are in the best interests of patients and physicians." Dr. Joseph M. Feczko. Pfizer's chief medical officer, said in a press release Industry support for CME has quadrupled since 1998, to $1.2 billion a year. according to the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCMEL an organization in Chicago that approves CME providers. More than half of that is funneled to marketers, with the rest going to hospitals, medical associations, and other ede Preis/Getty Images RF nonprofit entities As industry money for continuing education proliferates, so do worries that many of the courses have become at least partly aimed at promoting products. The industry and its outside marketers say ensure that the courses remain free of commercial influence. But some medical experts argue that when employee communications firms are beholden to pharmaceutical and device companies, they will produce CME courses slanted in favor of their sponsors, even if they don't realize what they are doing. "There's not only a perception there's a reality." says Dave Davis, a vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges In January 2010, Pfizer appeared to modify its 2008 position by announcing a $3 million grant to Stanford to create continuing medical education courses that the company claims will come with no conditions, and the will not be involved in developing the curriculum." However, critics have argued that the curriculum will most on at least two areas in which Pfizer has major product lines: smoking cessation and heart disease