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About the Author
Dan Greenberg is a longtime observer of science policy and politics. He is the author of "Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism" (University of Chicago Press), as well as other books, and has published widely in newspapers and popular and professional magazines.
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Recent Posts
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Featured Articles By the Author
Countering Big Pharma's Misuse of Academic Prestige
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)
Posted at 11:39:29 AM on June 18, 2008 | All postings by Dan GreenbergComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
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The media, too, are complicit in this. Take the Neurontin scandal where precisely these shenanigans had been going on – and used by Pfizer to encourage off-label prescribing by physicians via the corps of drug reps and their visits to hospitals, universities, clinics, and physicians’ offices.
When a False Claims Act case ensued, at the initiative of a disillusioned drug rep and the Justice Department, did we find this scandal on page one of our newspapers, etc.? Hardly.
Ever try to complain to a member of Congress besides Sen. Grassley about what the FDA should be doing about this? Ever get an answer? Please do share if you did. Such replies are so rare as to be collector’s items.
Big Pharma has bought a lot more than academia with its dollars. Just look around you – everywhere.
— Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Jun 18, 05:48 PM · #
If “naming and shaming” is the way to go, then why not name these Harvard professors in the article?
— WG · Jun 19, 08:14 AM · #
I discovered a tremendous amount of collusion amongst the pharmaceutical industry, practitioners, payers, providers and the federal government while doing my doctoral dissertation research. Their relationships form a huge iron triangle reminiscent of the military industrial complex. For those of us trying to bring about positive change in this arena, it is a target rich environment. An excellent book on the milieu of this issue is: The Truth About the Drug Companies, by Marcia Angell, MD
— Dr. D · Jun 19, 10:10 AM · #
WG:
Let’s just call it “full disclosure.” And it is the way to go! Conflict of interest is not a mysterious notion to universities, and the only effective way of defending oneself against situations in which lesser men and women might succumb to financial inducements is replicable research publicly presented and defended in an environment of free and open scientific interchange.
— Droste · Jun 19, 11:12 AM · #
Having worked in the pharmaceutical industry, I am not surprised in the least about any of this. Big pharma cares not for those who take their drugs, but only for the dollars spent.
Here’s a simple solution (well, at minimum a step in the right direction):
Have the FDA conduct it’s own research. Better yet, to maintain the cash flow to higher ed have the FDA contract with Higher Ed institutions (at the institution level, not the individual professors). Of course the FDA can’t afford this, but considering the ‘savings’ to the pharma companies it would not be unreasonable to pass the cost on to them as an ‘evaluation fee’.
Oh, and for the sake of sanity ban the direct-to-consumer marketing of prescription drugs!
— a different Dan · Jun 19, 12:46 PM · #
Great question WG. Why weren’t the professors named?
— Just reading · Jun 23, 09:44 AM · #
Gangsters, physicians (mostly only at top ten research universities), and bankers—all are the same occupation, largely, making money from old people as they struggle with physical and mental decline. The dream of a non-commercial space of the mind, means nothing to the ambitious selfish monster types that populate Harvard. The LEAST intellectual environment in the world is the hallways, dining halls, and eateries of Harvard—one word to the wrong person and 3 grad students publish it under their names a month later!!! Idea theft at top skill levels. It is a disgusting culture and ugly set of people in a decrepit place—a cesspool of civilizational decline. A dispicable parody of a university. And all the little monkeys at tier 2 and tier 3 institutions worship it and its budgets!!! Venal, vulgar, all too human, disgusting, banana-land. Ugh!!!!
— Richard Tabor Greene · Jun 23, 10:17 AM · #