Long-Time Fund Collaborators Discuss Vested Interests

Several Milbank Memorial Fund collaborators gathered for a conference—Vested Interests: Who Really Influences American Medicine, Public Health and Health Policy?—at the University of Michigan on October 1 and 2. The event, which was sponsored by the university’s Center for the History of Medicine and the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI), was organized by Howard Markel, Editor-in-Chief of The Milbank Quarterly, and John Ayanian, director of IHPI. Markel is also the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine and director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.

The conference began with a public keynote talk from Richard Besser, MD, ABC news chief health and medical editor, followed by a question and answer session about the vested interests involved in writing the Affordable Care Act. The panel, which was moderated by Jonathan Cohn, senior national correspondent for the Huffington Post and an op-ed contributor to The Milbank Quarterly, featured Christopher F. Koller, president of the Fund; John McDonough, Harvard School of Public Health; and Nicholas Bagley, University of Michigan School of Law.

On the second day, academic sessions focused on vested interests in the pharmaceutical industry, food production, environmental health, and conflicts of interest in academic medicine. Speakers included Amy Beaudreault, the New York Academy of Sciences, and Philip Nichols, Nestlé Health Science, on food producers/fast food industry; John Abramson, Harvard Medical School, and John LaMattina, PureTech Ventures, on big pharma and biotech; David Rosner, Columbia University and op-ed contributor to the Quarterly, and Martin Philbert, University of Michigan School of Public Health, on environmental health; and Catherine D. DeAngelis, Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine and Public Health and op-ed contributor to the Quarterly, and Daniel M. Fox, president emeritus of the Fund, on academic medical centers and conflicts of interest.