Policy Committee Meeting 9_28_2023

ROUGH DRAFT – FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY

5/18/2023:

For consideration at our next in-person board meeting:

Motion: I motion that the OMA adopt procedures around developing and disseminating position statements as outlined below. --------------------------------------------------------

Background: our amazing new Obesity Pillars journal represents a great way to disseminate position statements by the OMA BOT; however, it is important that position statements represent the fully considered input from the entire BOT, and not just a subset of the board. I’m concerned that our new process does not allow for comprehensive input and consideration from the entire BOT. For reference, historically, our board would request a position statement in a motion. Generally, that would be referred to a committee such as the policy committee, or sometimes to volunteer member(s) of the BOT. The draft resolution would be brought back to the board at an in-person meeting for discussion. Only after full discussion would the position be released publicly on the OMA website. And, it would be dated, and flagged for reconsideration or retirement at a 5 year sunset date. Our last 2 position statements were written by a subset of the BOT, submitted directly to the editorial staff of the journal, circulated to the BOT with limited time for consideration, it was recommended only minimal input be considered as it was already in final draft, and then were sent directly for publication to the entire world for perpetuity without a board discussion. Further, authors retained final say on the documents published, not the BOT Position statements from the Board need to represent the full consideration of the BOT, and should not be driven only by a subset of the board, nor by editorial deadlines. The 2 position statements we have published represent bold statements by our organization. The first, on compounded peptides, represented significant legal risk to our organization in the original version, fortunately mitigated by Jim Wilson. The second makes statements about a standard of care in obesity medicine. For 10 years on our BOT, our board has always voted against any statement regarding standard of care. This statement was outside the scope of our board motion – to create a document about comprehensive care. While the final version watered it down, it still states that pharmacotherapy for obesity represents the current standard of care. Again, while I personally would like this to be true, it is not currently true. In the past we avoided making statements like this for fear of alienating members who did not include pharmacotherapy as part of their treatment.