Hard to Believe
Hard to Believe
Here’s an astonishing story that would be hard to believe, but knowing what we know about drug companies it’s all too believable.
A recent New York Times article featured the checkered career of a prominent Minneapolis psychiatrist. About 10 years ago the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice (MBMP) accused the doctor of reckless disregard of more than 40 patients. The doctor’s license was suspended for seven months and restricted for another two years.
Here are some of the doctor’s actions that qualified as reckless disregard:
Drug makers paid the doctor thousands of dollars for each patient recruited for a study. When one suicidal and hospitalized patient repeatedly refused to participate in a study, the doctor discharged him from the hospital. The patient committed suicide two weeks later.
- One patient was hospitalized by the doctor simply so the patient could be enrolled in a study.
- The doctor prescribed narcotics to pregnant patients.
- The doctor repeatedly prescribed narcotics to drug addicts.
- In 1979 and again in 1984 the FDA determined that the doctor had violated study protocols and reported inaccurate data to drug companies.
- Several times, the doctor gave experimental drugs to patients at first consultations.
- You might think this litany of shame is the astonishing part of the story, but no. Here’s where it turns to complete lunacy.
- Over the 10 years since his MBMP discipline, at least 12 drug companies have paid the doctor to oversee drug trials.
Wait – it gets worse.
The Times found that since 1997 more than 100 doctors who were disciplined or criticized by the MBMP received $1.7 million from drug companies, and nearly 40 doctors received combined compensation totaling $140,000 while their licenses were still restricted.
Minnesota is the only state that makes such records available to the public.
Sources:
“After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay” Gardiner Harris and Janet Roberts, The New York Times, 6/3/07, nytimes.com
