Senators Investigate Catheter Conference Organizers
-- Tradeshow Week, 10/28/2008 12:42:00 PM
If the organizers of Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics, held Oct. 12-17 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., feel like they’re being hounded by a couple of U.S. senators, they might come by those feelings honestly.
On the last day of the meeting and tradeshow that attracted more than 10,000 physicians and others involved in treating diseases with catheters, most notably heart stents, U.S. Sens. Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, and Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent the Cardiovascular Research Foundation a letter demanding financial details about the involvement of five medical device makers in the meeting and tradeshow.
The two senators sent the same letter to Columbia University, which is affiliated with the foundation. Both the foundation’s current and former chairmen are researchers at the university.
The five device makers the senators asked the foundation for information on were Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson and Medinol.
Implying a potential conflict of interest because of financial ties to the device makers, in their letter the senators wrote, “As you are no doubt aware, there are divergent scientific opinions concerning such products, the safety and efficacy of which are a matter of dispute among cardiologists.”
In a statement given to Tradeshow Week and other media outlets, the foundation stated, “CRF welcomes the inquiry from Sens. Kohl and Grassley and intends to comply fully with their request for information about CRF’s research and educational activities and funding sources.”
The requests for information were similar to those the two senators made in September to the American College of Cardiology shortly after it announced it had signed a five-year agreement with the CRF to sponsor a summit during the cardiology group’s Annual Scientific Session, beginning with its March 28-31 meeting in Orlando.
At the time, the senators wrote, “The CRF receives funding from a variety of medical device manufacturers. The potential for this partnership to influence clinical practice raises questions concerning the continued impartiality of your organization.”
Just as in the most recent case, the American College of Cardiology said it would cooperate with the senators.
Kohl and Grassley have introduced a bill they call the Physician Payments Sunshine Act into the U.S. Congress that would require manufacturers with $100 million or more in annual gross revenue to report any money spent on marketing to or educating health care professionals about their products.
The bill currently is being considered by the Senate Finance Committee.