The American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) wants to play with words. Normally I associate COI
as meaning conflict of interest which means that what is said or
published requires investigation because of monies received by (in
this case) Big Pharma. For conflict of interest for AADE just go to
Industry Allies Council page from the pop-up window in the About Us.
In the AADE blog for April 22, the
writer, Karen Kemmis covers some of name change history. The
Specialty Practice Groups (SPGs) have now become Communities of
Interest (COIs). Why the AADE chose this when it can be confused
with the acronym in the first paragraph is somewhat confusing. There
is much discussion about a few of the areas in the COIs, but this is
for members only.
I have no problem with this being for
members and the discussion is interesting. What is objectionable to
me is the COI use. I asked a CDE recently about COIs and had a great
discussion about this. I did wait until near the end of the
discussion to ask about conflict of interest and did I get told off.
How dare I say that she as a CDE have a conflict of interest.
I simply stated the AADE had conflicts
of interest and by labeling communities of interest as COIs, that
opened quite a can of worms for themselves. Of course the CDE did
not see it this way. She continued to lecture me and said that she
did not have COIs. I finally agreed that maybe she did not, but her
professional group sure did. She asked how I arrive at that
conclusion.
Since she had her computer open, I
asked her to open the AADE website and then to open the Industry Allies Council page. Then I asked her to scroll down to the list of
big pharma companies. She would not, but stated this was for support
of the AADE and did not affect CDEs.
I did not go further as it would not
have accomplished anything other that create a more hostile
atmosphere.
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