Dans le cadre des conférences du CIRST, Sergio Sismondo, professeur au département de philosophie à Queen's University, présentera une conférence intitulée, «Key Opinion Leaders: Valuing Independence and Conflict of Interest in the Medical Sciences».
Résumé : “Key Opinion Leaders”, or more normally “KOLs”, are academic physicians used by pharmaceutical companies to influence other physicians. According to former sales representative Kimberly Elliott, “There are a lot of physicians who don’t believe what we as drug representatives say. If we have a KOL stand in front of them and say the same thing, they believe it”. A network of KOLs forms an “armamentarium of expertise” external to the company, or an “activation network” for a particular product, in the words of two drug company medical science liaison experts.
KOLs need to retain their independence to be effective, and probably to maintain self-esteem. Nonetheless, their disclosures of conflict of interest display their connections in stunning detail, and suggest their lack of independence. How is it that the culture of medical science has developed to encourage academic physicians to serve as spokespeople for the pharmaceutical industry? How do rewards circulate to maintain this system? How is the knowledge KOLs transmit respected? In short, how does influence and conflict of interest function within the relevant moral economies of medical science and the pharmaceutical industry?
