Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16768

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

Dorschner J
Controversial psychiatrist to head UM medical school department
The Miami Herald 2009 Nov 5
http://www.cchrint.org/2009/11/05/nemeroff-lands-psych-chairmanship/

Full text:

Charles Nemeroff, an Atlanta psychiatrist who was the subject of a Senate investigation concerning huge sums he received from drug companies, is being named chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Miami medical school.

Last year Nemeroff, as chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University, was the intense focus of an investigation by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who said he was concerned about the money the psychiatrist received from drug companies while conducting supposedly unbiased research for the National Institutes of Health on drugs made by the companies he was receiving money from.

On Thursday, Pascal Goldschmidt, dean of UM medical school, called Nemeroff ``an extraordinary psychiatrist and scientist. . . . He got into serious trouble on disclosure on conflict of interest.’‘

Goldschmidt said he had read investigative reports from Emory about Nemeroff’s activities and Emory found nothing to indicate that payments the psychiatrist received had in any way influenced his research results, and cleared him from any evidence of bias in his work.

In a telephone interview at midday Thursday, Nemeroff, 60, told The Miami Herald he was excited to be coming to Miami. ``I think it’s going to be a top-10 school.’‘

A front-page report by The New York Times in October 2008 said that congressional investigators found Nemeroff — ``one of the nation’s most influential psychiatrists’‘ — had received $2.8 million in consulting deals with drug makers over seven years and failed to report at least $1.2 million of that to Emory University.

Based on Grassley’s complaints, Emory suspended Nemeroff’s work on an NIH grant and asked him to step down as chair of psychiatry while it studied his conduct. Earlier this year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services had launched an investigation into Nemeroff’s activities.

The OIG said it never confirms nor denies any inquiries about investigations. Nemeroff said he knew nothing about an OIG investigation. NIH did not immediately respond on Thursday morning to Herald requests for comment. Nemeroff said he had been told by NIH that he could apply for grants as soon as he arrives in Miami.

About $800,000 to $1.2 million, according to published reports, came from GlaxoSmithKline, while Nemeroff was leading a major study into mood disorder drugs, including ones made by GSK.

Nemeroff said Thursday that the news reports had not made clear that the talks were on GSK drugs now on the market, while his research funded by NIH involved animal and lab studies of GSK chemical compounds that were years away from market.

The psychiatrist said in retrospect he should have declared the drug maker payments but that, at the time, he viewed the university standards as not requiring such revelations since the talks were of an educational nature. Emory has since changed its rules to make them more clear.

In a letter to Grassley last December, Emory officials wrote: ``We do not believe that Dr. Nemeroff’s participation in the compensated speaking arrangements with GSK in any way biased the research conducted under the grant, although we will continue to ensure that no such bias existed.’‘

The Emory letter said Nemeroff’s talks on behalf of GSK were ``focused on medical education and were not product specific or promotional. . . . As you alleged, Dr. Nemeroff did not disclose substantial speaking fees from pharmaceutical companies to Emory. Under federal regulations and Emory’s policies, we believe he should have done so, although both the regulations and our policies could have been clearer.

``In Dr. Nemeroff’s view, substantive, nonproduct specific talks focused on general medical education did not present a significant financial interest and were therefore not subject to disclosure under the United States Public Health Service.’‘

Grassley responded in a letter that his staff’s research found that Nemeroff’s talks were not educational and should have been reported.