Healthy Skepticism Library item: 964

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Publication type: news

Associated Press.
Pa. gov't pharmacist fined for ethics violations, ties to Pfizer
WKYT 2005 Apr 10

Full text:

The state Department of Public Welfare’s chief pharmacist repeatedly violated state ethics law by using his position to earn extra income from sources that included a drug manufacturer, the State Ethics Commission said in a report released Thursday.

The commission fined Steven Fiorello more than $27,000 and referred the case to the attorney general’s office for possible criminal prosecution.

In its report, which looks back as far as 1998, the commission cited repeated conflicts between Fiorello’s unofficial activities and his official duties, which included serving on a panel that decides which medications may be given to patients at the nine state mental hospitals. It also cited repeated failures to disclose his income from the drug maker Pfizer Inc. and other outside sources.

Fiorello became a member of Pfizer’s “advisory council” around the same time he joined the state medication panel. The council held annual meetings, apparently “to solicit input from health-care professionals to help Pfizer define its commercial strategies for its products,” the commission said.

In 1999, he teamed up with a Pfizer official on a state-financed study of antidepressants that showed Zoloft, a Pfizer product, to be among the least expensive drugs of that type, according to the commission.
He later received two $1,000 payments from Pfizer to present the study’s findings at company-sponsored conferences in Orlando, Fla., and Dublin, Ireland _ one of 20 violations the commission identified.

“It’s a study that he got paid to do as a commonwealth employee,” said John J. Contino, the commission’s executive director.

Among the other violations were:
_Fiorello participated in actions by the medication committee that involved drugs on the state’s formulary, including Pfizer products, at a time he had a financial relationship with Pfizer.

_ He accepted $3,500 in honoraria from Pfizer for attending meetings of its advisory board in 1998, 2000 and 2001.

_ As a former preceptor for Duquesne University’s pharmacy student internship program between 2000 and 2003, Fiorello received $2,400 for mentoring the interns on state time without his supervisor’s knowledge.

_ He accepted a $2,000 honorarium from another drug maker, Janssen Pharmaceutica Products, for participating in a 2002 state Department of Corrections conference that Janssen sponsored.

_ He received a $1,000 honorarium for helping to produce a CD-ROM that Pfizer sponsored through the University of Kentucky in 2000.
Fiorello, 58, whose state salary was $82,310 last year, declined to be interviewed Thursday but apologized for violating the ethics law in a written statement. The 16-year veteran of the department said he accepted the commission’s conclusions, “although I do not necessarily agree with the findings.”

Fiorello said he has been a pharmacist in the state mental hospital system for more than 16 years. He said he was instrumental in developing the state’s current pharmaceutical purchasing contract, which he said has saved taxpayers millions of dollars through reduced prices for drugs used by state hospitals.

“Money has not been the motivating factor in my activities,” he said. “My activities have always been primarily for the best interests of our patients with mental illness and the profession of pharmacy.”

The commission received Fiorello’s check to cover the $27,268.50 fine on Thursday, Contino said.
Spokesmen for the Public Welfare Department and the attorney general’s office said they were reviewing the 101-page report.