Interaction of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology with Industry

37 The interaction of professionals, professional associations and universities with the pharmaceutical industry is under intense scrutiny (1-9). Throughout the 1990s, the relationship of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG) with the pharmaceutical industry was guided by a document entitled Guidelines Regarding the Conduct of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology with the Pharmaceutical and Manufacturing Industries. That document was written at a time when the principal activity of the CAG was its participation in the annual meetings of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. The research and educational programs of the CAG have had great benefit from the interactions of the CAG with a variety of industries over many years, but the reader will know that the extent of research and educational activities of the CAG has grown enormously. In 2000, the governing board of the CAG charged the ethics committee with reviewing its policy for interactions of the CAG with the pharmaceutical industry. The ethics committee (Dr Jeff Axler, Dr Anne-Marie Griffiths, Dr CA Ottaway) reviewed the existing policy, the emerging literature and the position of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), and made recommendations to the governing board for a new position statement regarding CAG-industry interactions (Appendix 1). This position statement was discussed in detail at CAG board meetings in late 2000 and early 2001, but final approval was deferred while the CMA was updating its policy on physicians and the pharmaceutical industry. That policy was adopted by the CMA during 2001, and the position statement regarding CAG-industry interactions was adopted by the CAG governing board at its meeting November 24, 2001. This position statement is coherent with the code of ethics of the CMA, and the CMA policy on physicians and the pharmaceutrical industry. It would not be appropriate for the CAG to adopt policies that would place its members, many of whom are physicians, in a position that would conflict with the policies of the CMA. The CAG recognizes that, in the complexity of modern professional life, situations regularly arise in which primary and secondary interests, and primary and secondary obligations, coexist. As Korn (10) observed: