American Board of Internal Medicine Quietly Discloses Some Conflicts of Interest

We recently discussed the American Board of Internal Medicine's exceedingly weak conflict of interest policy.  This came to light after the board's previous president was revealed to have simultaneously served for years on the board of directors of a privately held for-profit hospital purchasing organization.

The susceptibility of ABIM leadership to conflicts of interest is particularly important because the board, in its role as the de facto sole source of credentialing for all US internists and internal medicine sub-specialists, sets what these physicians need to know to pass the certifying examinations. Conflicts of interest raise doubts about whether the examinations may be used to further commercial agendas and similar vested interests.

Furthermore, the ABIM has been willfully expanding its scope into "maintenance of certification," that is, into requiring physicians to engage in ABIM educational and evaluation activities to maintain their previously obtained certification.  They have been criticized in particular (e.g., here and here) for pursuing maintenance of certification in the absence of clear evidence that it improves physician performance or patients' outcomes.  Conflicts of interest affecting MOC raise further doubts that this "innovation" may also be about furthering commercial interests.

ABIM Begins Conflict of Interest Disclosure

Now it appears that the ABIM is beginning to disclose more about its leadership's conflicts of interest.  One of our scouts notified me that the ABIM web-site now provides disclosures for the members of its board of directors and officer, council, and executives.

There seem to be limits to these disclosures.  As far as I can tell,They do not reflect a change in the preexisting ABIM conflict of interest policy, which still calls for conflicts to be disclosed, but only to ABIM leadership, while they are otherwise kept confidential.  Nor were these disclosures accompanied by any further explanation that I can find.  The disclosures include multiple categories, consulting relationships, peer educational activities, promotional activities, grants, intellectual property, stock/option, gift/ donations, expert witness, leadership in professional organizations, and other, which are not otherwise defined.  It was not clear, however, whether the disclosures covered services on corporate advisory boards or boards of directors, or service as executives or founders of companies.  The time course of the disclosed relationships were not clear.  Finally, ttere are no disclosures about members of exam writing committees of sub-specialty board members

Nonetheless, the disclosures do give an idea of the scope of conflicts of interest affecting ABIM leadership.  Because the disclosures have not otherwise been publicized, I thought it would be worthwhile to summarize them here.

Prevalence of Conflicts

Of the 12 officers and directors, 8 disclosed relationships with for-profit health care corporations

Of the 15 council members (one of whom is also a director), 9 revealed conflicts.

Of the 12 executives, 5 revealed conflicts.

Thus, a majority of ABIM physician leadership, and nearly a majority of  ABIM executives disclosed conflicts of interest.

Nature of Conflicts

The conflicts were predominantly consulting relationships, grants, holdings of patents, or of stocks or options.  The conflicts of the officers, directors and council members primarily involved pharmaceutical, biotechnology and device companies.  Several officers, directors and council members had two kinds of relationships with the same company, for example, consulting relationships and grant funding.




It was striking that 15 companies had multiple relationships with officers, directors and council members.  All were large pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and device companies.  They were

AbbVie (1 consulting relationship 2 grants)
Amgen (1 consulting, 1 grant, 2 stock holdings)
AstraZeneca (3 consulting, 1 grant)
Bristol-Myers-Squibb (2 consutling, 2 grants, 1 stocks)
Celgene (2 consulting, 1 grant)
Gilead (1 consulting, 2 grants, 1 stocks)
Johnson and Johnson (1 consulting, 2 grants [one through Janssen], 2 stocks)
Eli Lilly (1 consulting, 1 grant)
Medtronic (2 consulting, 1 grant)
Merck (2 consulting, 2 stocks)
Novartis (2 grants, 1 stocks)
Pfizer (1 consulting, 1 grant, 2 stocks)
Roche (1 consulting, 2 stocks)
Teva (1 consulting, 1 stocks)
Millennium (1 consulting, 1 grant)

The officers, directors, and council members additionally had relationships with a vast number of companies, including in attempted alphabetical order: Abbott Laboratories, Agios, Allos, AllScripts, Arrowhead, Biocontrol Medical, Cephalon, Cephied, CorAssist, Cornovus, CVRx, Covidien, Dr Redy's Labs, Emergent Biosolutions, Express Scripts, Genentech, Gen-Probe, Hologic, Human Genome Sciences, Incyte,  ION(?), miRNA Therapeutics, Peluton Therapeutics, Pharmacyclics, Regeneron, Repros Therapeutics, Research to Practice (owned by AmerisourceBergen) Prime Healthcare, Rigel, Seattle Genetics, Sunesis, TG Therapeutics, UnitedHealthcare, Value Capture, Viamet, Ventrigen, Vertex, XCenda,  and ZS Pharma.

Thus, the conflicts of interest were extensive, and involved major health care corporations.

Summary

The American Board of Internal Medicine is to be congratulated for taking steps towards more transparency and honesty about conflicts of interest affecting its leadership.  However, the steps were baby steps.  Lacking still are definitions and time courses of the relationships disclosed, assurances of the completeness of disclosure of all relevant relationships, assurances that disclosure is now the policy going forward, and disclosures for members of committees and sub-specialty boards who are also very influential in constructing examinations and maintenance of certification activities.  These ought to be addressed.

The disclosures reveal that the conflicts of ABIM leadership were extensive.  While disclosure is good, disclosure does not assure physicians and the public that certification and now maintenance of certification are not influenced by marketing needs and other commercial interests.  In my humble opinion, the ABIM now ought to phase out, as quickly as possible conflicts of interest affecting those who make its policy, write its exams, and conduct its other activities that can influence physician behavior, decisions made for patients, and health policy.  Also, in my humble opinion, the ABIM ought to suspend its efforts to promote maintenance of certification until it has greatly reduced the conflicts of interest that may affect this effort.