senator charles grassley

ETHICS TURNAROUND (sort of) by NIH INSTITUTE DIRECTOR

Happy Times at NIMH – PART III

The unraveling of Thomas Insel, MD, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health continues.

His ties with the poster boy for conflict of interest in psychiatry, Charles Nemeroff, MD, are getting new exposure.

The story is notable not only for what it says about Insel and Nemeroff, but also for what it says about the ethical culture within NIMH.

One of the more bizarre stories to appear on Health Care Renewal just resurfaced.  To summarize, in June, 2008, we posted about the strange case of four Japanese men, allegedly affiliated with Yakuza criminal organizations, who received liver transplants from the UCLA Medical Center, apparently with some alacrity.

All likely paid full list prices for their procedures, and two later donated $100,000 each to the medical center.

We previously posted about financial ties between Professor David Polly at the University of Minnesota and medical device maker Medtronic.

We have frequently posted about attempts to justify financial relationships among physicians and medical academics on one hand, and pharmaceutical, biotechnology, device and other health care corporations, on the other.

All things that fall must converge?

INSTITUTE of MEDICINE REPORT on CONFLICT of INTEREST

US Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is digging into what appears to be another ghost-writing case. As reported by the New York Times,

Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company, paid ghostwriters to produce medical journal articles favorable to its hormone replacement therapy Prempro, according to Congressional letters seeking more information about the company’s involvement in medical ghostwriting.

We have published a few posts about the controversy about the clinical research supporting the use of paroxetine (Paxil, Seroxat in the UK, made by GlaxoSmithKline) in depression (here, here, here, and here.) This controversy incl

SCHATZBERG DISCLOSURES

Questions continue to buzz about Dr. Alan Schatzberg’s and Stanford’s claims that he complied with the university’s disclosure requirements.

Dr. Schatzberg is chair of Stanford’s department of psychiatry and the founder of a company called Corcept Therapeutics.

I have commented previously on the University’s (mis)management of Dr.

Schatzberg’s conflict of interest vis a vis Corcept and his NIH funding.