Pharmaceutical firms are incorrigible in buying academic prestige to elude FDA scrutiny and push the sale of dubious drugs. Can they be prevented from inflicting danger on the public?
Not easily or directly, given the lure of Big Pharma’s money and the regulatory lassitude that prevails in Washington and on many campuses.
But a good weapon for promoting virtue remains underutilized: shame and embarrassment directed at complicit professors and the schools that tolerate their shady commercialism.
There’s an ample supply of big-name professors willing to do business with Big Pharma in return for generous payments. Some, perhaps many, operate above board in these relationships. Others allow their names to be put on the company’s ghost-written papers and hawk drugs without acknowledging their mercenary roles.
The latest scandal, revealed by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), involves three Harvard psychiatry professors who collected at least $2.6 million from pharmaceutical firms between 2000 and 2007. Most of the money was not reported to Harvard, in violation of university and federal research regulations.
The firms involved in such deals routinely assert that they seek to enlist leading university scientists in their mission to provide better drugs for the American people. The academic researcher explain that they genuinely believe in the efficacy and safety of the drugs they promote, and that’s why they collaborate with industry.
Hovering above these dealings in the guise of public protection is a flimsy federal regulation that requires recipients of federal research money to report outside income above $10,000 per year.
However, the rules are minimal: The income is to be reported to the university, but there’s no requirement to pass the information to any government agency or to make it available to the campus community. Moreover, scientists are on their honor to report outside income. No one checks on whether they are filing or whether the filings are accurate. Government research agencies do not look into the outside dealings of the university scientists who receive their grants. The system is rich with opportunities for scientists to do as they please — and many do.
Hard times impel universities to lower their ethical sensitivities in seeking money, so let’s not expect a renaissance of good behavior to occur naturally in response to Senator Grassley’s revelations. On the other hand, toleration of squalid dealings does not enhance a university’s philanthropic attractiveness. Which is why commencement platforms echo with vows of commitment to public service, elevated ethical standards, etc. Universities present themselves as good institutions, deserving public support and appreciation.
Profs illicitly on the take should arouse the scorn of faculty, students, alumni, donors, professional societies, and others who are concerned with the integrity of higher education and its important scientific component.
Transparency is not a cure-all, but it can be useful. Why not, then, require that all outside income relevant to academic duties must be reported in a publicly accessible database? Relatively few in an academic community share the loot, but all lose something when their institution is tainted by squalid dealings.
Big Pharma won’t give up its pursuit of academic science’s good name. And it will still find many willing partners. But a lot of the mischief that now thrives under murky rules will wither away in the sunlight.
(Image from photobucket.com)
