BLOGSCAN - Reports from the ACRE Meeting

The proceedings at the first meeting of the benignly titled Association of Clinical Researchers and Educators (ACRE) was chronicled on the Carlat Psychiatry Blog here, and on Postscript, the Prescription Project blog here. ACRE, founded by Dr Thomas Stossel (see relevant post here on the sorts of arguments Dr Stossel has made), was founded to defend academics who are paid on the side by drug, biotechnology, and device companies from the complaints of the "pharmascolds." What I found most troubling was that the conference was officially opened by Dr Jeffrey Flier, the Dean of the Harvard medical school, implying a medical school endorsement of this group, and featured presentations by the presidents of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and the American Society of Hypertension, implying endorsement by these medical societies. But also see the comments by Dr Howard Brody on the Hooked: Ethics, Medicine and Pharma blog that there may be a silver lining to this cloud.