Doctor Accused of Leak to Drug Maker

[Celebration]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/business/31censure.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

A leading member of the Senate said Wednesday that a prominent diabetes expert had leaked an unpublished and confidential medical journal article to GlaxoSmithKline last year, tipping the company to the imminent publication of safety questions involving the company’s diabetes drug Avandia.

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The expert, Dr. Steven M. Haffner of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, faxed the article to the drug maker after agreeing to read it as part of the peer-review process for The New England Journal of Medicine, according to a statement Wednesday by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa.

“The most troubling aspect of this situation is that the integrity of another aspect of the scientific process is called into question — scientific peer review,” Mr. Grassley’s statement said. The peer-review process, he said, is meant to ensure “that other scientists will judge a study’s quality before it is made public.”

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An article on the matter published online Wednesday by the journal Nature quoted Dr. Haffner as saying: “Why I sent it is a mystery. I don’t really understand it. I wasn’t feeling well. It was bad judgment.”

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Dr. Haffner has previously disclosed that he has conducted research and served as a paid speaker for Glaxo. Mr. Grassley said that Dr. Haffner had received $75,000 in consulting and speaking fees from GlaxoSmithKline since 1999.

Pretty interesting article. Dr. Haffner apparently said the major medical journals are becoming more like British tabloid journals. He does sound a little bit "off" to me.