ABSTRACT
In 1984 the Journal became the first of the major medical journals to require authors of original research articles to disclose any financial ties with companies that make products are discussed. Academic medical institutions are themselves growing increasingly beholden to industry. This chapter discusses the extent to which academic medicine has become intertwined with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, and the benefits and risks of this state of affairs. When the boundaries between industry and academic medicine become as blurred as they now are, the business goals of industry influence the mission of the medical schools in multiple ways. The chapter argues that the more contacts there are between academia and industry, the better it is for clinical medicine; the fact that money changes hands is considered merely the way of the world. Academic institutions and their clinical faculty members must take care not to be open to the charge that they are for sale.
