A Sunshine Act for Europe

...But thinking that individual doctors can avoid links with industry is unrealistic, says Gale. "Money from drug companies and the influence it buys [are] integral to the way medicine is done, and the carefully nurtured belief that clinicians can navigate all this amid the odour of sanctity and scientific objectivity is mere illusion." What is needed, he says, is a change of culture "in which serving two masters becomes as socially unacceptable as smoking a cigarette."

BMJ 2011;343:d6593