Drug company influence goes deep into the heart of the medical establishment. A government scientist in the USA has revealed he was in the pay of drug giant Pfizer, receiving $300,000 (£150,000) for ‘consultancy’ work.
His consultancy involved the purloining of invaluable fluid samples from a government laboratory and sending them to Pfizer’s scientists, and endorsing the company’s Alzheimer’s drug Aricept (donepezil).
Dr Pearson Sunderland III, a federal research scientist at the US National Institute of Mental Health, has pleaded guilty to the charges, and says he will return the money.
For his fee, he shipped 538 spinal fluid samples, gathered by the Institute, to Pfizer. The money, which he never disclosed, even when endorsing Pfizer products in professional journals, was supposedly for lecture fees.
(Source: British Medical Journal, 2006; 333: 1237).
E-news broadcast 21 December 2006 No.320 [
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