The website for the Dallas-Leipzig International Valve 2010 conference has substantially altered previous remarks about its relationship with TheHeart.Org. (The change was originally reported by Pia Christensen on Covering Health, a blog run by the Association of Health Care Journalists.) As first reported on CardioBrief, here is the description of the relationship as it originally appeared in the Industry Prospectus published on the conference website:
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Monthly Archives: August 2010
SHAPE getting ready to update its controversial guidelines 3
The Society for Heart Attack Prevention and Eradication (SHAPE) has announced the formation of a new task force “to refine and update” its earlier published guidelines. The SHAPE Task Force II held its initial meeting on July 30-August 1, according to the organization. Morteza Naghavi is the Executive Chairman of the Task Force, while PK Shah is the Chair of the Scientific Board and Erling Falk is the Chief of the Editorial Committee.
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FDA advisory panel will review Meridia (sibutramine) on September 15 Reply
A spokesman for Abbott Laboratories has confirmed news reports that the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee of the FDA will review sibutramine (Meridia) and the SCOUT Study on September 15. (The committee was already scheduled to review the new weight loss drug lorcaserin from Arena Pharmaceuticals on the following day.)
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At the Dallas valve meeting even the faculty is for sale 6
[August 6 Update: the Industry Prospectus discussed below has been removed from the DLIV 2010 website. You can download an archived copy here.]
Company banners, ads in program books, sponsored badge holders, headrests on buses with company logos– these are just a few of the commercial items to be found at medical meetings these days. Many of us have grown used to them. But $6000 for industry sponsors to purchase lunch with four faculty members? That’s a new one on me.
I recently received an email invitation to Dallas-Leipzig International Valve 2010, a “two-and-a-half day meeting that will feature a unique cardiology and surgery collaboration in didactic lectures, challenging case studies and intense debates of controversial areas in the management of valvular heart disease.” Attendees can receive 19 hours of CME credit.
The meeting website contains a link to an extraordinary document, Industry Prospectus. This is from the welcome letter to potential industry supporters from the course directors (Michael Mack, Friedrich Mohr, David Brown, and William Ryan):
Industry support is a driving factor in the success of our meeting, and we strive to offer our supporters the contact they need to build relationships and establish leads.
and
This year, our meeting will not only attract leading healthcare professionals, but it will also offer optimal contact opportunities between physicians and industry leaders.
The document makes very clear that the meeting has been designed to be industry-friendly:
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Medicines Company wins key ruling in effort to extend patent on bivalirudin Reply
The Medicines Company announced today that it had received a major boost in its efforts to extend the patent life of its biggest product, Angiomax (bivalirudin). The company has been engaged in a protracted struggle with the patent office, which had refused to extend the company’s patent on Angiomax because the application had been filed late by a day. A US District Court judge today issued a summary judgement in favor of the company and ordered the patent office to consider the company’s “patent term extension application timely filed.”
Click here to read the press release from the Medicines Company…
Calcium and the Law of Unintended Consequences Reply
Dr. Steven Novella finds another story to add to the law of unintended consequences-– calcium supplements and heart disease. More…
Donald Shiley, valve inventor, dead at 90 1
Donald Shiley, a co-inventor of the Bjork-Shiley heart valve that helped usher in the era of valve replacement surgery, died on Saturday at the age of 90.
Shiley initially worked at Edwards Laboratories but then established his own company, Shiley Laboratories, to manufacture artificial heart valves. Developed in cooperation with Viking Björk, a Swedish heart surgeon, the Bjork-Shiley valve, the first tilting-disk heart valve, became an enormous success after its introduction in 1971. Shiley’s company was purchased by Pfizer in 1978. Shiley then became well-known as a philanthropist in the San Diego area, where he lived until his death. You can read a news report in the San Diego Union Tribune.
