Senators probe industry funding of TCT presenters

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chair of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, are investigating financial ties between various device firms, physicians from Columbia University and the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, relating to research that was presented at this year's Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics conference in Washington, D.C. Grassley and Kohl, sponsors of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (S.2029) in the Senate, sent a letter to Columbia University asking for information by Oct. 30 about outside income that teaching physicians participating in TCT have received from Abbott, Medtronic, Medinol, Boston Scientific and Johnson & Johnson. CRF said Oct. 16 that it "welcomes the inquiry from Senators Kohl and Grassley and intends to comply fully with their request for information about CRF's research and educational activities and funding sources." S. 2029 would require medical device and pharmaceutical firms to publicly disclose payments they make to physicians on an Internet database ("1The Gray Sheet" May 26, 2008, p. 14)