Janine Wedel - Unaccountable - How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security

29. Gerald Epstein and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, “Financial Economists, Financial Interests and Dark Corners of the Meltdown: It’s Time to set Ethical Standards for the Economics Profession.” Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Working Paper no. 239, October 2010 (http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_201-250/WP239.pdf).

30. Ibid., p.1.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid., p. 4.

33. Ibid., pp. 5 and 19.

34. Gerald Epstein and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, “Letter to Mr. Robert E. Hall, President, American Economic Association,” January 3, 2011, pp. 1-2 (http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/other_publication_types/AEA_letter_Jan3b.pdf).

35. American-based codes of ethics for these professions are as follows: For journalists: Society of Professional Journalists, “Code of Ethics” (http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp). For engineers: National Society of Professional Engineers, “Code of Ethics” (http://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics). Note that different engineering fields also have their own versions of a code of ethics. For accountants: American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, “Code of Ethics” (http://www.aicpa.org/interestareas/professionalethics/Pages/ProfessionalEthics.aspx); International Federation of Accountants, “Code of Ethics” (http://www.ifac.org/publications-resources/2013-handbook-code-ethics-professional-accountants). For anthropologists: American Anthropological Association, “Principles of Professional Responsibility” (http://ethics.aaanet.org/ethics-statement-0-preamble/). For sociologists: American Sociological Association, “Code of Ethics” (http://www.asanet.org/about/ethics.cfm).

Epstein and Carrick-Hagenbarth point out the lack of an ethics code in economics. Gerald Epstein and Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth, “Letter to Mr. Robert E. Hall, President, American Economic Association,” January 3, 2011 (http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/other_publication_types/AEA_letter_Jan3b.pdf). See also G. Martino, “A Professional Code for Economists.” Challenge , 2005, pp. 88-104.

Lloyd J. Dumas, Janine R. Wedel, and Greg Callman examine the issue and put forth a proposed code of ethics in: Confronting Corruption, Building Accountability: Lessons from the World of International Development Advising. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

36. “Submissions to the AEA journals should conform to the AEA disclosure principles which state”: American Economic Association, “AEA’s Disclosure Policy,” July 1, 2012 (http://www.aeaweb.org/aea_journals/AEA_Disclosure_Policy.pdf).

37. Ibid.; and Pedro da Costa, “New ethics standards for economists.” Macroscope blog, Reuters, January 6, 2012 (http://blogs.reuters.com/macroscope/2012/01/06/new-ethics-standards-for-economists/).

38. David Kocieniewski, “Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward.” New York Times, December 27, 2013 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/business/academics-who-defend-wall-st-reap-reward.html?hp&_r=0&gwh=B932D50B26508EF7EBB9E3BE54D79F0C&gwt=regi).

39. Ibid.

40. Gerald Epstein, “‘Stronger than I expected’—Gerald Epstein on AEA disclosure guidelines.” Triple Crisis: Global Perspectives on Finance, Development, and Environment, January 20, 2010 (http://triplecrisis.com/stronger-than-i-expected/).

41. Coined by the sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld and his students in the 1950s, KOL refers to “structures of influence in politics, fashion, culture, medicine, and other domains” (Sergio Sismondo, “Key Opinion Leaders and the Corruption of Medical Knowledge: What the Sunshine Act Will and Won’t Cast Light On.” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, vol. 41, no. 3, 2013, p. 636).

The term was based on their research of the 1944 U.S. presidential election (see: http://www.physician-connect.info/knowledge-center/physician-connect/community-focus/). See also: P. F. Lazarsfeld, B. Berelson, and H. Gaudet, The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Election. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1944. E. Katz and P. F. Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communication. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1955.

42. Carl Elliott, “The Secret Lives of Big Pharma’s ‘Thought Leaders,’” The Chronicle Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education , September 12, 2010 (http://chronicle.com/article/The-Secret-Lives-of-Big/124335/), p. 3. This article is adapted from Elliott’s book White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine . Boston: Beacon Press, 2010.

43. Sergio Sismondo, “Key Opinion Leaders and the Corruption of Medical Knowledge: What the Sunshine Act Will and Won’t Cast Light On.” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , vol. 41, no. 3, 2013, p. 638.

44. Being a KOL, like any social role, is not just about pay and perks. It is also about identity and status. And there’s a psychological payoff, argues Elliott. He writes (Elliott, op. cit.):

. . . the real appeal of being a KOL is that of being acknowledged as important. That feeling of importance comes not so much from the pharmaceutical companies themselves, but from associating with other academic luminaries that the companies have recruited. Academic physicians talk about the experience of being a KOL the way others might talk about being admitted to a selective fraternity or an exclusive New York dance club. No longer are you standing outside the rope trying to catch the doorman’s eye, waiting hungrily to be admitted. You are one of the chosen.

45. See, for instance, Sergio Sismondo, “Key Opinion Leaders and the Corruption of Medical Knowledge: What the Sunshine Act Will and Won’t Cast Light On,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, vol. 41, no. 3, 2013, p. 636. Sismondo writes: “companies hope to lead medical opinion in their preferred directions through a two-step model of influence by hiring and otherwise enrolling some physicians and researchers who will, in turn, influence many others.”

Marcia Angell, in The Truth About Drug Companies, highlights how pharmaceutical companies play a considerable role in the continuing medical education of physicians. She notes: “In 2001, drug companies paid over 60 percent of the costs of continuing medical education. . . . [F]ormerly, they directly supported the accredited professional organizations, but now they usually contract with private medical education and communication companies (MECCs) to plan the meetings, prepare teaching materials, and procure speakers” (See: Marcia Angell, The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. New York: Random House, 2004, p. 139). This is one means of building and maintaining relationships with KOLs, “a top priority for the drug industry” (Piotr Ozierański, Who Rules Postcommunism? The Case of Drug Reimbursement Policy in Poland . Cambridge University dissertation, 2011, p. 20).

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber provide a variety of cases beyond medicine (for example, the use of biotechnology in agriculture, Microsoft and the antitrust invesgitation in 1998, and the tobacco industry), where independent experts or the seemingly neutral “Third Man” (p. 7) are used to lend credibility to a product. See: Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Trust Us, We’re Experts. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2002.

46. Carl Elliott, “The Secret Lives of Big Pharma’s ‘Thought Leaders.’” The Chronicle Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education , September 12, 2010 (http://chronicle.com/article/The-Secret-Lives-of-Big/124335/), p. 2.

47. Sociologists Piotr Ozierański and co-author Lawrence King argue that this state of affairs applies not only to traditional medical specialties but also to highly sophisticated—and apparently science-based—fields like Health Technology Assessment (HTA). HTA is supposed to establish, based on complicated pharmaco-economic calculations, whether medicines subsidized by the state represent value for money, irrespective of physicians’ individual clinical experience. Ozierański and King detail the case of a key HTA expert in Poland who appears to have risen to prominence as a result of skillfully bridging the arenas of state, business, and nonprofits. While HTA was supposed to introduce more objectivity, thus curbing the influence of KOLs in traditional medicine, the authors show this has not happened (Piotr Ozierański and Lawrence King, “The Persistence of Cliques in the Postcommunist State,” 2014, forthcoming paper).