Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1662

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

This is your school on drugs
2002 Jan 31

Full text:

University of Toronto is at it again. In an embarrassingly naked quest to be bigger, better, brighter and more profitable, our wannabe Harvard of the North is set to displace the historic greenhouses of its botany department, which sit on prime real estate at the southeast corner of Queen’s Park Crescent.
A $70 million pharmacy building will rise in the place of hundred-year-old plants and the familiar glass-and-stone structure. The change is symbolic in several ways. As the Varsity student newspaper puts it, “short-term pressures to produce hundreds of new pharmacists a year, in an era when drugs are increasingly the treatment of choice,” are responsible for the proposed erection of a druggist-producing establishment in place of a historic building dedicated to understanding nature and long-term scientific investigation. Even more symbolic, the centre — to be called the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building after the founder of Novopharm Ltd., which will donate $8 million — is located between the ivory towers of supposedly pure and selfless knowledge and the U of T-affiliated hospitals that line University Avenue. It was at the Hospital for Sick Children on University Avenue a few years ago that Dr. Nancy Olivieri, in drug trials funded by Apotex Inc., found that a drug produced by the company had potentially fatal effects. She was threatened with legal action by Apotex after intending to reveal her findings. The scandal only came to light thanks to a courageous and career-damaging stand on the part of Olivieri and a few of her fellow doctors. (The drug continues to be widely marketed throughout the world.) Presumably, out of the goodness of their hearts — or perhaps in appreciation for U of T’s lack of enthusiasm for defending their researcher — Apotex is giving $5 million to the project. Shoppers Drug Mart will throw in another $2 million. As usual, U of T is horrified by questions about its integrity. Vice-president Jon Dellandrea suggests that critics are dreaming up a diabolical plot on behalf of pharmaceutical companies to intervene and guide research. But as the recently formed ad hoc group Doctors for Research Integrity has pointed out, studies show that medical students given such minor gifts as company-sponsored pizza end up as less skeptical and more enthusiastic drug pushers when they begin to practice. But several tens of millions influencing university priorities? How could you think such a thing? Those tears of hurt indignation in the eyes of well-connected administrators are of the crocodile variety. Just as when they “unhired” psychopharmacologist Dr. David Healy from his position at the U of T-affiliated Centre for Addiction and Mental Health because of concerns about his view that Prozac can induce suicidal behaviour (Prozac-makers Eli Lilly later made a large donation to the CAMH), U of T’s latest plan looks out for industry — not society, the love of learning or the needs of students. Using drug company money to finance a pharmacist factory will exacerbate the problem, as U of T will be wooing the private sector for a further $18 million to cover costs not paid by the provincial government or the university itself. U of T’s priorities are out of whack. Despite the benefits of many drugs, this focus on pharmaceuticals does not reflect the best interests of society. It does, however, eerily reflect the priorities of the world’s most profitable industry, which is desperate for students trained to prepare and deliver the medicines they are avidly marketing, to the tune of over $20,000 per Canadian doctor annually. Prescription drugs are often nothing more than band-aids, and sometimes — as Olivieri and Healy got so much grief for pointing out — they can be dangerous. In fact, many medical problems would be better addressed by improving funding for cause-oriented, half-starved academic departments like sociology, community and population health, and environmental health. C’mon, U of T. Just say no.