After much unfavorable publicity, medical schools and professional organizations are beginning to talk about controlling conflicts of interest, but so far the response has been tepid. They consistently refer to "potential" conflicts of interest, as though that were different from the real thing, and about disclosing and "managing" them, not about prohibiting them. In short, there seems to be a desire to eliminate the smell of corruption, while keeping the money.

The relationship between pharmaceutical companies and medical professionals has become too close for comfort, say many experts. They fear that the situation can breed conflicts of interest that lead to the creation of new, poorly defined concepts of illnesses—so called 'disease mongering'. The problem is a growing one, according to Ray Moynihan, honorary lecturer on topics such as 'medicine and the media' at the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, Australia.

In addition to boasting the world's most comprehensive selection of connectorized and surface mount microwave mixers, Marki also offers a full catalog of high performance multipliers (doublers, triplers & quadruplers), amplifiers, bias tees, filters and much more.

Convincing journalists to use the generic names will be a tough sell. Brand names are appealing to mainstream media for several reasons.

The drug maker Pfizer earlier this decade manipulated the publication of scientific studies to bolster the use of its epilepsy drug Neurontin for other disorders, while suppressing research that did not support those uses, according to experts who reviewed thousands of company documents for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the company.

According to Daniel Carlat’s spin of a recent ACCME literature review, yes, hopelessly so. But the review concluded: "…to date there is no empirical evidence to support or refute the hypothesis that CME activities are biased."

News articles reporting on medication studies often fail to report pharmaceutical company funding and frequently refer to medications by their brand names despite newspaper editors' contention that this is not the case.