Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14951

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

Frankston Lorin J, Lauerman J.
Harvard Medical School to Review Drug Research Ethics
Bloomberg.com 2009 Jan 15
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aD6RpDNyYKko&refer=us

Full text:

Harvard Medical School, which lists more than 10,000 faculty members, said a committee will review its policy on conflicts of interest on drug research.

The 19-person panel is charged with studying the school’s principles, provisions and procedures regarding interactions between faculty and the pharmaceutical industry, the school said in a statement today. The last policy review took place in 2004, the school in Boston said. The institution, part of Harvard University, boasts 15 Nobel Prize winners among its current and former faculty.

Institutions have come under fire as scientific researchers have been found to have financial interests that may bias their work. Massachusetts General Hospital said in November that it would investigate a child psychiatry research center run by Joseph Biederman, a Harvard University child psychiatrist. Johnson & Johnson, maker of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, funded the center.

“It’s vital that we engage appropriately with industry in order to fulfill our mission of improving human health and eradicating disease,” Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier said in today’s statement. “We are committed to governing these relationships with high standards and transparency in order to protect scientific integrity.”

Harvard’s committee will include representatives from the medical school, affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes, and the student body, according to the statement.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health banned staff scientists from consulting work in the chemical and drug industries after potential conflicts of interest were exposed.

A congressional report said in 2007 that the agency still lacks clear rules to guard against influence-peddling. A 2006 committee of scientists urged leading scientific journals such as Science and Nature to vet authors of studies for possible financial interests that might compromise the integrity of their research.