HOWEVER, there needs to be some balance injected into this process, and quickly. Successive governments (State, Federal, Global) abrogated all meaningful responsibility (and I mean funding) for continuing medical education, research and development a long time ago. About the time the expectations of the public and the costs got too high.

Sure, pharma invests in education and research for a different set of priorities than those the government/public may have but it’s naive in the extreme to think that there is no overlap nor mutual benefit.

The worse case scenario here is that education, research and development all but close down in Australia and then we’ll just be left practicing medicine based upon what other people tell us based upon evidence derived entirely from overseas populations…and that will do no-one any good.

I’ll happily declare my conflicts that I am a practicing physician and receive research funding, some travel expense and speaking honoraria from a number of pharma sources…and you can make of that what you will.

Self regulation in areas such as food standards and TV content have demonstrated that leaving the crims in charge of the prison is foolish.

When did self regulation ever work? If not, then why do we persist with this model anywhere, at any time? If so, then evidence please…

The mendacity duplicity of the pharmaceutical industry is beyond question, and its practice of providing doctors with funded junkets is legend, and no action is taken.