The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University has organized a symposium on Institutional Corruption and Pharmaceutical Policy that will be published in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 2013: Vol. 14 (3). It will be published at the begining of September.
The goals of pharmaceutical policy and medical practice are often undermined due to institutional corruption — that is, widespread or systemic practices, usually legal, that undermine an institution’s objectives or integrity. The pharmaceutical industry’s own purposes are often undermined. In addition, pharmaceutical industry funding of election campaigns and lobbying skews the legislative process that sets pharmaceutical policy. Moreover, certain practices have corrupted medical research, the production of medical knowledge, the practice of medicine, drug safety, and the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of pharmaceutical marketing.
Marc Rodwin invited a group of scholars to analyze these issues, with each author taking a different look at the sources of corruption, how it occurs and what is corrupted. The articles address five topics: (1) systemic problems, (2) medical research, (3) medical knowledge and practice, (4) marketing, and (5) patient advocacy organizations.
For more information on the symposium, including a full list of the articles, please visit the Safra Center’s website. You can also access advanced copies of the 16 symposium articles through SSRN online.
For a summary of each article and the key themes in the symposium see, Marc Rodwin, Institutional Corruption and Pharmaceutical Policy.
