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Features efforts to disentangle physicians from the pharmaceutical industry, including the campaign of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) known as PharmFree, which is calling for an end to gift-giving, free lunches, sponsored education, and paid speaking. Call for disentanglement from pharmaceutical companies and independent education and sources of information by medical reform groups and student associations; Plans of the University of California at San Francisco to end free lunches sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and to remove drug representatives; Efforts of professional associations and standard-setting bodies to encourage more distance in relations with industry; Defense of the value of its educational sponsorship to patients by the industry, which rejects the idea of a trend towards disentanglement.

Explores the conflict at the University of California at San Francisco concerning the relationships between medical researchers and the pharmaceutical industry. Evidence which shows that interactions with the industry influences physicians' behavior; Observation that sponsored research tends to produce favorable results; Debate of rules governing relations between researchers and sponsors at leading academic institutions; Rise in pharmaceutical expenditures; Idea that entanglement may undermine rational prescribing strategies; Argument that a culture of industry gift-giving creates entitlements and obligations for physicians which conflict with their primary obligation to patients.