Rebuttal: Is CME a drug-promotion tool?

I have read with great interest the discussion about pharmaceutically sponsored CME. There is truth on both side of this dialogue. However, there is a significant difference between Canadian and American health care systems with latter being more likely to be influenced by pharmaceutical companies because private health care system is more vulnerable to financial incentives that may in turn affect organizers of CME events. On the other hand in Canada, especially in Ontario, stringent guidelines prevent pharmaceutical companies from offering any direct incentives to physicians for promotion of their drugs. Thus, only unrestricted educational grants can be provided to CME committees, allowing them to choose the speakers for events with unbiased opinions. Interesting, in conversation with pharmaceutical representatives, I have learned that the competition is such that if one company learns that another one is breaking the rules then the first one will report them to independent monitoring authority that has power to sanction the offender. It works well because smaller companies that don’t have financial power are vigilantly observing that large companies are following the guidelines. In addition, I believe that in the era of EBM we should always look for evidence behind medications we prescribe and question pharmaceutical representatives and their subsidiaries to provide them to us.