Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15204

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Publication type: news

Pollack A.
Pfizer Asked to Detail Payments to Harvard Doctors by Senator
Bloomberg News 2009 Mar 4
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aAc.gVFLjz28

Full text:

March 4 (Bloomberg) — Pfizer Inc. has been asked to detail its payments over two years to at least 149 Harvard Medical School doctors by a U.S. senator investigating the drug industry’s ties to physicians and academic researchers.

Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Pfizer in a letter to disclose the amount, dates and reasons for payments including honoraria and research support to Harvard medical faculty members dating to Jan. 1, 2007. Grassley also requested e-mails, faxes, letters and photos from the drugmaker regarding Harvard students after the New York Times reported that a Pfizer employee used his cell phone in October to photograph students protesting industry influence.

Grassley, the ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, has probed whether doctors and research schools have properly disclosed links to drug and medical-device companies. Harvard, Emory University in Atlanta and Stanford University near Palo Alto, California, are among schools that have reviewed or altered conflict-of-interest rules in light of the scrutiny.

“Inquiries have led the committee to believe that physicians are failing to disclose the money they receive from companies as required by federal regulations,” Grassley said in the letter.

Pfizer spokesman Ray Kerins said the New York-based drugmaker would cooperate with Grassley’s request to provide the information by March 10.

‘Wholly Appropriate’

“We continue to believe that Pfizer’s practices with respect to its interactions with medical universities are wholly appropriate and are in compliance with industry standards and the law,” Kerins said in an e-mailed statement. “We believe our collaborations with academic medical institutions provide a valuable source of innovation and scientific advancement.”

Grassley has proposed federal legislation that would require drug and device-makers to publicly report payments to doctors. Eli Lilly & Co., Medtronic Inc. are among the companies that are or said they will publicly disclose consulting fees, royalties and honoraria to doctors.

New York-based Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, said Feb. 9 it will make public on its Web site as of early 2010 payments of $500 or more a year to U.S. practicing physicians, research scientists and academic institutions.

The senator said he was disturbed by the report that a Pfizer employee may have been watching the students in light of his committee’s earlier reports of drug companies attempting to intimidate academic critics of the industry.

‘Intimidate Young Scholars’

“While I am not certain that photographing demonstrators rises to the same level, it does raise concerns that Pfizer is attempting to intimidate young scholars from professing their independent views on issue that they think are critical to science, medicine and the health and welfare of American taxpayers,” Grassley said in the letter.

Pfizer’s Kerins said the incident “overshadowed” the benefits of collaboration between industry and academic medical institutions.

“Pfizer regrets that a photograph of Harvard Medical School students taken by one of our sales representatives was offensive to anyone involved,” he said in the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Pollack in San Francisco at apollack1@bloomberg.net