Physicians should encourage pharmaceutical companies to make socially responsible funding decisions and take an active role in setting biomedical research priorities by advocating for fair and effective allocations of public and private biomedical R & D investments.

The financial generosity of the pharmaceutical industry to provide funding for medical education tempts a compromise of professional standards and ethics.

The ethical questions surrounding the recruitment of patients for clinical trials become more complicated when the recruiting physicians receive financial benefits for each patient enrolled.

Murray Kopelow, chief executive of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, discusses his organization's the new draft standards for commercial support of continuing medical education.

A Canadian physician reports there is systematic bias to the outcome of published research funded by the pharmaceutical industry and believes more steps need to be taken to improve the integrity of clinical research reports in the United States and Canada.

Two physicians assert that pharmaceutical companies' sponsorship of clinical conferences for residents and physicians represent a conflict of interest.

Medical ethicists have discussed the use of race classification in determining disease prevalence and the response of specific ethnic groups to different medications.

Physicians can use specific communication techniques to help a patient who has a low health literacy level understand a medical diagnosis and treatment procedure.

Community education about how patients can best communicate with their physicians has been successful in various communities, particularly when working with an ethnically diverse patient population.