by Alison Bass | Aug 3, 2011 | antipsychotic drugs, conflicts of interest, health care costs, university industry collaboration
Medicare and social services for vulnerable Americans are not the only programs on the chopping block with Washington’s deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut trillions of dollars in government spending. Looming ahead may be deep cuts in funding for medical and...
by Alison Bass | Jul 20, 2011 | conflicts of interest, drug marketing, National Institutes of Health, university industry collaboration
I realize this is the dead of summer and every journalist who isn’t on vacation is captivated by the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal. But while everyone is looking the other way, the National Institute of Health’s proposed new rules about the disclosure of...
by Alison Bass | Jul 11, 2011 | antidepressants, conflicts of interest, ghostwriting, scientific misconduct, university industry collaboration
The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has called on President Obama to remove Amy Gutmann, University of Pennsylvania’s president, as chair of his presidential commission for the study of bioethical issues. The reason: Gutmann did nothing to sanction the...
by Alison Bass | Jul 5, 2011 | antipsychotic drugs, conflicts of interest, pharmaceutical industry, university industry collaboration
Harvard Medical School finally wrapped up its three-year-old investigation of Dr. Joseph Biederman and two colleagues accused of failing to disclose extensive financial conflicts of interest, with essentially a slap on the wrist. In 2008, Congressional investigators...
by Alison Bass | Jun 28, 2011 | conflicts of interest, pharmaceutical industry
Two quick notes: the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has posted a helpful FAQ on corporate-funded medical ghostwriting. As POGO investigator Paul Thacker writes: “We hope this [FAQ] will answer any questions you might have on this very disturbing practice...
by Alison Bass | Jun 27, 2011 | biotech industry, conflicts of interest, drug marketing, health care costs, medical devices, pharmaceutical industry
A page-one story in The Boston Globe today spotlights the Massachusetts biotech industry’s effort to block a key piece of President Obama’s health care overhaul: the creation of an independent payment advisory board (IPAB) that would make recommendations...
by Alison Bass | Jun 14, 2011 | pharmaceutical industry, Uncategorized, university industry collaboration
I was planning to blog about Pfizer’s new $100 million partnership with several Boston-area medical centers and its potential downsides. But before I could get around to doing that, I was invited to talk about the deal on WGBH-TV’s Greater Boston show...
by Alison Bass | Jun 8, 2011 | antidepressants, conflicts of interest, expert testimony, medical devices, National Institutes of Health
A few weeks ago, I blogged about the strange case of Dr. Helen Mayberg, a neurologist at Emory University who has testified in more death penalty cases in recent years than almost any other doctor in the country. I highlighted Mayberg’s lucrative and lethal (she...
by Alison Bass | May 17, 2011 | conflicts of interest, expert testimony, medical devices, National Institutes of Health, patient care
A year ago, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed new rules governing the disclosure and handling of financial conflicts of interest by medical researchers who receive federal funding. The more stringent rules were prompted by Congressional findings...
by Alison Bass | May 13, 2011 | antidepressants, ghostwriting, pharmaceutical industry
In his latest blog, Paul Thacker, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and former aide to Senator Charles Grassley, struggles to understand how Dr. Stan Kutcher, a psychiatrist turned politician in Canada, could possibly say that Paxil study...
