Doctors Vote To Ban Ama Endorsements
Doctors angry over the American Medical Association’s deal to lend its name to Sunbeam Corp. approved a ban Tuesday on AMA endorsement of products it doesn’t produce.
The organization’s House of Delegates also agreed to appoint a committee to investigate how the Sunbeam deal slipped through, apparently without approval from the board of trustees.
“The AMA is against product endorsement, and this organization has made a move to make sure everyone knows that,” said Dr. Thomas Reardon, chairman of the trustees.
The committee will investigate all aspects of the Sunbeam affair as a way to restore faith in the AMA’s integrity, said Dr. Ralph E. Schlossman, chairman of a panel that brought the measures to the floor of the group’s biennial conference.
“There was some residual paranoia that some stones weren’t turned over, so let’s have a committee satisfy itself that nothing did happen that hasn’t been dealt with,” he said.
In August, a five-year deal with the AMA was announced in which the organization would give a “seal of approval” to humidifiers, blood pressure monitors and other Sunbeam home care products. Under the exclusive arrangement, the AMA was to receive millions of dollars in royalties, though it had no plans to test the products.
The AMA, which had steered clear of large endorsement deals until Sunbeam, announced a week later it was backing out of the much-criticized arrangement. Sunbeam then sued for $20 million.
The AMA has been reluctant to discuss how the deal came about because of the pending lawsuit.
Three executives were fired by the AMA over Sunbeam, and Dr. P. John Seward, the executive vice president, resigned last week after accepting partial responsibility for the contract.
Delegates also voted Tuesday to make it the executive vice president’s responsibility to ensure the board of trustees is aware of any future corporate arrangements that have an economic impact on the AMA.
The 150-year-old AMA is the nation’s largest organization of physicians, representing more than 40 percent of the country’s doctors.