Ama To Form Ethics Panel In Wake Of Controversial Product Endorsement Pact

Stung by a controversial endorsement deal with Sunbeam Corp., the American Medical Association will form an ethics panel to address how the group should handle business ventures.

Panel members will be announced over the next several days and are expected to include AMA officials and ethicists specializing in business, medicine and institutional affairs.

“Our internal processes broke down with the Sunbeam contract and we are taking a long look at ourselves and how we do business arrangements,” said Dr. Thomas Reardon, chairman of the AMA board of trustees.

AMA announced the exclusive product endorsement deal with Sunbeam in August. The doctors group quickly bowed out after critics said that the millions of dollars in royalties the AMA would receive from the pairing would raise questions about the group’s integrity. Sunbeam has since filed a breach-of-contract suit against the AMA.

Dr. Reed Tuckson, the AMA’s vice president for professional standards, said the goal is to “create a gold standard for how the AMA and other organizations should have relationships with corporate America consistent with the larger values embedded in medicine.”