Should the drug industry work with key opinion leaders? No

The proliferating connections between doctors and the drug industry have brought the credibility of clinical medicine to an unprecedented crisis. Corporate actions that have placed profit over public health have become regular news. High profile examples include the misrepresentation of research on rofecoxib and on the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in children. Recently, two respected scientists who work for a drug company wrote that the problem of conflict of interest “could well erode the credibility of the entire enterprise of academic medicine, if not properly and promptly addressed.”1 2