Conflicts

not yet published, has shown that “a sizeable percentage are tweeting about drugs that they have specific ties to,” oncologist Vinay Prasad, one of the authors of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, said in an interview. “Not a single one has disclosed so far, but we’ll find out.”

A pharmaceutical industry trade group, in a statement, defended the relationships between companies and other organizations. “Industry engages with stakeholders across the health care system to hear their perspectives and priorities,” said the statement by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “We work with many organizations with which we have disagreements on public policy issues, including on prescription medicine costs, but believe engagement and dialogue are critical.

“While we cannot speak for particular organizations, we have heard from many patients who are concerned about the growing out-of-pocket cost burden when trying to access needed health care services and treatments,” PhRMA said. In addition, there is broad recognition by the patient community of the significant unmet medical need that exists for many fighting devastating and debilitating diseases.”

Moynihan and Bero, the authors of the JAMA Internal Medicine commentary, wrote that their primary concern is that patient groups actually speak for patients. Recently, when Mylan came under widespread criticism for the price of its EpiPen, patient groups were largely silent.

“To ensure a healthier patient voice in medical research, education, policy and practice, sponsored groups that want to be seen as independent and credible need to decrease their industry sponsorship and ultimately disentangle, gaining in authority what they lose in resources,” they wrote.

Charles Ornstein is a senior reporter at ProPublica, an independent nonprofit newsroom based in New York.