Harvard Medical School's 11,000 faculty will face stricter regulations governing their relationship with pharmaceutical and medical device-making companies starting January, under a new policy designed to prevent conflicts of interest with industry.
The new conflict-of-interest rules, unveiled Wednesday after an 18 month-long review, prohibit faculty from giving industry-sponsored talks and accepting personal gifts. The cap on faculty compensation from outside companies has been cut in half to $10,000 annually.
“As an academic field of review, conflict of interest is changing,” said Gretchen A. Brodnicki, the school's Dean for Faculty and Research Integrity who led the 34-member review committee. “Our understanding of what is or is not a conflict now may change in a year, a year and a half, or two years from now.”
The policy revisions follow a period of national scrutiny, during which Harvard Medical School and its peer institutions have come under fire for several high-profile cases of undisclosed industry ties.
Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, first reported in June 2008 that psychiatrist Joseph Biederman of Harvard-affiliate Massachusetts General Hospital received $1.6 million in consulting and speaking fees from the makers of drugs that he used to treat children for bipolar disorders.
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