From free lunches to continuing education, doctors are constantly connected to the drug industry. These ties help keep doctors up-to-date on the latest medical developments, but do they also create conflicts of interest that could compromise patient health? In this hour, we'll take a look at conflicts of interest in medicine. Plus, a look at academic medicine: do clinical researchers face the same ethical issues as physicians?

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Guests:
Ezekiel Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D.
Medical Oncologist and Bioethicist
Chair, Department of Clinical Bioethics
The Clinical Center
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, Maryland

Sanford Friedman, M.D.
Cardiologist
Mount Sinai Hospital
Associate Clinical Professor, Medicine/Cardiology
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
New York, New York

Jerome Kassirer, M.D.
Author, "On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business can Endanger Your Health" (Oxford University Press, 2004)
Former Editor, New England Journal of Medicine
Distinguished Professor
Tufts University School of Medicine
Boston, Massachusetts

Thomas Stossel, M.D.
Co-director, Hematology Division
Brigham and Women's Hospital
American Cancer Society Professor
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts

Books/Articles Discussed:

"On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business can Endanger Your Health" by Jerom eKassirer. Oxford University Press, 2004.

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This segment produced by Julie Leibach