Business Ethics news and information

Raghuveer Nayak, a figure in the U.S. Senate seat scandal that helped bring down former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, was arrested at his suburban Chicago home this morning and charged with paying bribes and kickbacks to doctors for sending patients to his string of surgery centers.
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Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) are continuing to press the CMS on the implementation of the Physician Payments Sunshine Act.
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A Monterey County, Calif., public hospital district did $21 million in business over the past five years with firms in which its CEO and board members held financial interests, according to a state audit.
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Citing concerns that physicians will be discouraged from conducting research because of "potential mischaracterizations of their income," the Association of Clinical Research Organizations is calling for the CMS to exclude research on drugs not yet approved for sale by the Food and Drug...
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A bone-marrow registry and medical laboratory company that used fashion models wearing high heels and short skirts to recruit potential donors will pay the state of Massachusetts $520,000 for engaging in an improper marketing practice, state officials said.
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U.S. health officials said Monday that they were further delaying rules that would force drugmakers and device companies to report all payments and gifts to doctors.
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A sample review of the 334 ethics waivers HHS granted to its employees in the first year of the Obama administration found most did not follow federal documentation rules—specifically, ethics guidelines issued in the waning days of the Bush administration.
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AstraZeneca said it has started to disclose payments and other “transfers of value” made to physicians and healthcare organizations, including hospitals, in the U.S.
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HHS issued an updated final rule (PDF) aimed at “providing a framework for identifying, managing and ultimately avoiding” financial conflicts of interest among scientists conducting government-funded research.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) urged the Office of Management and Budget to continue to require a publicly available website that will track financial relationships between the drug industry and the researchers (PDF) who...
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