Friday, May 16, 2014

Failing to act as stewards of the occupation’s standards

There continue to be lots of stories about the high cost of the new drugs to combat hepatatis C.  Here's one from NPR by Melissa Block and Richard Knox.

In a previous post, I talked about the presence of  a distinguished academic on the board of Gilead, the company that makes one of these drugs.  It's time to ask the question more directly:  Where does Dr. Richard Whitley stand on this matter?

What does his silence on this issue say to the country about his duty to two masters, a federally subsidized drug research effort and a pharmaceutical company? What message does that send to the public about how they should view the relationships between academic medical centers and industry?

We don't need a Sunshine Law to see that Scott Gottlieb has it right: The profession, and academic medicine especially, is failing in its responsibility to act as the steward of the occupation’s standards.

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