So said Dr. Richard Grimm, a Minnesota researcher who accepted $798,000 or so from drug companies between 1997 and 2005. No, Dr. Grimm, no one assumes any such thing. It’s the disclosure that matters. Lewis Morris, the general counsel for the inspector general’s office in the Department of Health and Human Services, in announcing upcoming civil and criminal charges against doctors who demand consulting fees from pharmas in exchange for using their products, countered. “Somehow physicians think they’re different from the rest of us. But money works on them just like everybody else.” Called a conflict, you either don’t take the money or youdisclose it. So, there will be a new transparency. Pharmas, as part of settling up in charges brought against them, have had to agree to post the names of doctors who have worked as consultants, panel experts, or speakers for them.  Name, amount received, and when.  Going forward, these disclosures will be a way of life.Â
So, doctors should assume that their names and payments they have received will become public.  Perhaps mulling over that disclosure brings some cognitive dissonance about the perks and payments from the pharams.  Perhaps that disclosure triggers a new approach of doctors letting their patients and employers know that they do have this conflict.Â
But, living in denial about influence neither addresses nor solves the conflicts. Human nature makes us vulnerable to those who treat us well. Confirmation of facts is a phenomenon that finds us evaluating issues and products in a way that confirms our own hypotheses and feelings. We see things as we see them, but we don’t necessarily see them as they are. Put these two together and you have a bias that can neither be denied nor overcome by righteous indignation.Â