Thursday, July 23, 2009

ACRE Charter Meeting's Unofficial Press Packet

In all the hoopla and excitement of forming a new organization such as ACRE, certain minor details are easy to overlook. One of these details is a listing of financial disclosures, which is conspicuously missing from the ACRE website. In the spirit of helpfulness and tying up loose ends, here is a partial list of industry disclosures that might otherwise get lost in the shuffle.

Thomas P. Stossel, MD American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School Director, Translational Medicine Division Senior Physician, Hematology Division Brigham & Women's Hospital Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research


Disclosure: Thomas P. Stossel, MD, has disclosed that he is on the Board of Directors for ZymeQuest, Inc. and Critical Biologics Corporation. Dr. Stossel has also disclosed that he owns stock options in ZymeQuest, Inc. and stock options and stock in Critical Biologics Corporation. Dr. Stossel has also disclosed that he has received a consulting fee from Critical Biologics Corporation and that he is a paid lecturer at corporations.


Source: Dr. Stossel's response to the AMA's ethics council's recommendations to limit industry funding of medical education.



Henry R. Black, MD, MA Hypertension Division, New York University Medical Center, President, American Society of Hypertension



Disclosure: Henry R. Black, MD, has disclosed that he has served as an advisor or consultant for Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, IntraCure, sanofi-aventis, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Forest Laboratories, Daiichi Sankyo, Boehringer Ingelheim, and CV Therapeutics.
Source:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/572474

Jeffrey S. Flier, MD Dean, Harvard Medical School, Carolyn Shields Walker Professor of Medicine



Disclosure: Previously received a $500,000 research grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb. He also consulted for three Cambridge biotechnology companies, but says that those relationships have ended and that he has accepted no new industry affiliations.


Source: This New York Times article on conflicts of interest at Harvard Medical School.


Rafael F. Fonseca, MD, PhD Mayo Clinic Arizona, Consultant, Professor of Medicine Deputy Director Mayo Clinic Cancer Center


Disclosure: Consultant for Amgen Inc., Genzyme Corporation, Medtronic. Speaker's Bureau for Celgene Corporation, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.


Source: The Center for Biomedical Continuing Education, a MECC specializing in industry-funded CME programs.


Jeffrey R. Garber, MD, FACP, FACE Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, President, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists


Disclosure: Consultant to KingPharmaceuticals and Abbott Laboratories.





J Michael Gonzalez-Campoy, MD, PhD, FACE Medical Director and CEO, MNCOME, Member, AACE Board of Directors


Disclosure: Research funding from Leptos and Sanofi-Aventis




Simon M. Helfgott, MD Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Director of Education, and Fellowship Training, Division of Rheumatology, Brigham and Women's Hospital


Disclosure: Consultant for Teva Pharmaceuticals; advisor and speaker's bureau for both Centocor and Genentech.


Source: Website of PRIME, a MECC specializing in industry-funded medical education.



Avi B. Markowitz, MD Bill and Louise Bauer Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research, Professor and Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Associate Clinical Director and Department Head of the Office of Oncology Clinical Trials, UTMB Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Texas Medical Branch


Disclosure: Research funding from Alexion, Amgen, Anthera, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Johnson and Johnson, Genentech, MGI Pharma, Ortho Biotech.


Source: CV of Avi Markowitz.


Paul G. Richardson, MD Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Clinical Director, Jerome Lipper Center for Multiple Myeloma, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute


Disclosure: Honoraria, Celgene Corporation, Millenium Pharmaceuticals





7 comments:

Sara said...

Great detective work. Quite revealing I would say. Thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

Any thoughts post meeting?

Anonymous said...

I attended the first hour and a half of the ACRE conference yesterday - trying to see how the other half lives. Ohmigawd. I couldn’t decide whether this was the most naïve group of over educated people I’d ever sat amongst or something that Samuel Becket dreamed up after reading George Orwell. You can’t imagine how put upon this impoverished and much maligned crowd feels! I had to leave because it was a very disorienting alternate reality - was I hallucinating and in need of Zeldox (Pfizer, last ¼ profit = $2.78 Billion) or clinically depressed and requiring Cymbalta (Lily, last ¼ profit = $1.16Billion)?

Among a number of memorably disconcerting PPP items – COI (conflict of interest, for the uninitiated) is ill defined by savage press lords, biased journals, and 'interest group' agitators and one has the (almost) moral obligation to make a distinction between benign COI and malignant COI. Maybe the speaker was cleverly punning on koi and this was some kind of zen koan that would help us achieve satori? I’m still trying to sort this out, unless...

Satori is a new intelligence enhancing drug under development at Pfizer? In which case maybe the whole conference was a clandestine drug trial and I got the placebo cup of coffee! No wonder I went home disappointed.

Anonymous said...

Duly noted, thank you. Disclosures definitely should've been made. I'd say though that someone conducting research for a company doesn't necessarily bias them at all -- it could be quite the contrary. These doctors certainly do what they do not just for financial gain, many patients would attest to that. Yet when you leave off the disclosures, it definitely appears fishy even if there is nothing to hide.

Unknown said...

So what?

Daniel Carlat said...

As it turned out, they distributed all industry disclosures at the meeting itself. But they really should have them on the website as well, particularly since they are so proud of them!

Gina Pera said...

"Yet when you leave off the disclosures, it definitely appears fishy even if there is nothing to hide."

You have a point, Anonymous. Yet, a surfeit of simple minds seeks the glib gotcha, as if pharma-funded research, etc. automatically means corruption and aren't they so dang smart for noticing it.

I include today's "savage press lords" in the "simple minds" category. Someone should force them to take remedial science classes and stop reading paranoid drivel from literature professors (such as Christopher Lane).