Physician Heal Thyself (II)

Here's a troubling lead paragraph from yesterday's Wall St. Journal:

Some doctors helping evaluate the effectiveness of an increasingly popular device for clearing clogged arteries own stock and options in the company that makes it, regulatory filings show.

The company is creating a registry to demonstrate the device's effectiveness rather than conducting a clinical trial with a control group. The fact that physicians are being compensated with stock options for contributing to the registry makes the data highly suspect and may put patients at risk.Dr. R. Stefan Kiesz, head of the San Antonio Endovascular & Heart Institute and a contributor the registry, says:

The fact that I own shares doesn't influence me. We do have a large population of patients who have done better than I thought" with the SilverHawk.

I don't believe that for a second. Do you really think he would talk about SilverHawk the same way if he owned shares in a competitor instead?See Doctors Take Stock, Supply Data for the full story.