Limite às Mesadas da Indústria Farmacêutica

Reportagem do New York Times aborda a questão de docentes receberem salário da indústria farmacêutica e indica que a Harvard começa a se preocupar com estas mesadas. Vejam trechos da reportagem abaixo.

Harvard Teaching Hospitals Cap Outside Pay
By DUFF WILSON
Published: January 2, 2010

The owner of two research hospitals affiliated with the Harvard Medical School has imposed restrictions on outside pay for two dozen senior officials who also sit on the boards of pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies. The limits come in the wake of growing criticism of the ties between industry and academia. The rules, which became effective on Friday, impose limits specifically on outside directors who guide some of the nation’s biggest companies.

Senior officials at the two hospitals, Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals in Boston, must limit their pay for serving as outside directors to what the policy calls “a level befitting an academic role” — no more than $5,000 a day for actual work for the board. Some had been receiving more than $200,000 a year. Also, they may no longer accept stock.
Criticism has been mounting in recent years as the conflicting roles of some medical leaders have been disclosed through Congressional investigations, lawsuits and reports in the news media. Those disclosures have raised questions about bias and the cost and quality of patient care at the nation’s medical institutions.
Harvard, in particular, has come under scrutiny from Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, a leader of Congressional inquiries into the influence of money in medicine.

We’re the first to go in this deep, and we’re still into it only up to our knees,” said Dr. Eugene Braunwald, a Harvard professor and former Partners chief academic officer who was chairman of the policy-writing group. He said the group had “a very spirited debate” before announcing its compromise in general terms in April, much of it effective in 2010.
“We thought it was a very good idea to have institutional officials serve on boards, but we did not want to have personal enrichment,” Dr. Braunwald said.