NYT: "academic institutions...will no longer deserve the tax exemption"
Mort Zuckerman
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Subject: NYT: "academic institutions...will no longer deserve the tax
exemption"
Date: Jan 3, 2010 6:56 PM
NYT ARTICLE BELOW
=======================
"...academic institutions are going to lose the confidence of the
country and the government and they will no longer deserve the tax
exemption or anything else. They will be part of industry itself.”
BINGO: "Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky was the original chairman of the
Partners policy commission in 2007, when he was the chief academic
officer at Partners and a $191,000-a-year board member at
GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical company based in London."
Allen Steere works for Partners
and SmithKline, too.
Explaining why Steere isn't in
jail yet. Allen Steere works for
Partners.org, who also *owns*
the Mass Medical Board (NEJM).
And Steere works for SmithKline
(manufactured Yale's OspA vaccine).
And SmithKline committed the fraud,
backed out, called Steere a lying
http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/ac/01/slides/3680s2_02_lobet.pdf
moron, but never reported the fraud
to the USDOJ.
They all maintained all their lies
all these years to protect each other.
The net result was mega$$$millions in
lost funding, no Lyme vaccine, "30
years and we have nothing," the failed
Pam3Cys LYMErix vaccine in the failed
HIV vaccines and the failed tuberculosis
http://www.actionlyme.org/Pam3Cys_Version15.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/FUNGAL_VACCINES.htm
vaccine, wrecking research in every
direction (MS, HIV, Cancer, AlS, Tuberculosis,
Autism, and vector borne diseases) for at
least 10 if not 15 years, because they knew
they outright LIED about the outcome of
LYMErix in 1998. The Western Blots in the
OspA vaccine trials were unreadable:
http://www.actionlyme.org/DICKSON_FDA_SUBMISSION_FULL.htm
yet both OspA teams lied in the journals
and the Steere/Yale/SmithKline team
lied to the FDA about the outcome of
LYMErix.
Durland Fish and Edward McSweegan deliberately
stalked and trashed Lyme and LYMErix victims
and stalked and trashed the Lyme.org who
found out it takes less than 48 hours
of tick attachment to transmit Lyme,
which would have wrecked the vaccine
trials protocols:
http://www.actionlyme.org/TICK_BITE_CONSPIRACY.htm
The reason Sweeg and Durland performed ^^ this
"I need more than rumors to attack" skit
was that if everyone knew that people should be
treated with antibiotics upon tick attachment,
then during the vaccine trials, people who
were given the vaccine would have had to
have been treated by antibiotics, and then
***no one would know whether the antibiotics
or the vaccine prevented Lyme Disease.***
Of course, as previously mentioned,
Yale is allowed to lie and perjure
and destroy lives in every manner
imaginable:
http://www.actionlyme.org/CT_MED_BOARD_BLOW_OFF.htm
Here and in Europe.
http://www.actionlyme.org/UCONNS_ABUSE_OF_CZECH_CHILDREN.htm
Ask Allen Steere if there is any of
that kind of OspA in Europe:
http://www.actionlyme.org/STEERE_IN_EUROPE.htm
???
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=8106763[uid]&cmd=DetailsSearch&log$=details
NONE.
Yale, UConn, SmithKline gave it to those
Czech kids just to see how much harm
it would do, since it obviously wouldn't
prevent Yale's strain B31 OspA - LYMErix -
in Europe.
No one mentions how much the insurance
companies pay their idiot advisors, like
Edward Eisenberg (Oxford Insurance) who
perjured himself at the first Blumenthal
Lyme Hearing, naturally, about the testing:
http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?A=2130&Q=294656
- - - -
As an aside, they sure pay a lot of money
to the crooked and the brainless, don't
they? It's just like Wall Street.
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
http://www.relapsingfever.org
===========================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/health/research/03hospital.html?hpw
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/health/research/03hospital.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print
January 3, 2010
Harvard Teaching Hospitals Cap Outside Pay
By DUFF WILSON
The owner of two research hospitals affiliated with the Harvard
Medical School has imposed restrictions on outside pay for two dozen
senior officials who also sit on the boards of pharmaceutical or
biotechnology companies. The limits come in the wake of growing
criticism of the ties between industry and academia.
Medical experts say they believe the conflict-of-interest rules at the
institution, Partners HealthCare, go further than those of any other
academic medical center in restricting outside pay from drug
companies. The rules, which became effective on Friday, impose limits
specifically on outside directors who guide some of the nation’s
biggest companies.
Senior officials at the two hospitals, Massachusetts General and
Brigham and Women’s Hospitals in Boston, must limit their pay for
serving as outside directors to what the policy calls “a level
befitting an academic role” — no more than $5,000 a day for actual
work for the board. Some had been receiving more than $200,000 a year.
Also, they may no longer accept stock.
Criticism has been mounting in recent years as the conflicting roles
of some medical leaders have been disclosed through Congressional
investigations, lawsuits and reports in the news media. Those
disclosures have raised questions about bias and the cost and quality
of patient care at the nation’s medical institutions.
Harvard, in particular, has come under scrutiny from Senator Charles
E. Grassley of Iowa, a leader of Congressional inquiries into the
influence of money in medicine.
Partners HealthCare is also forbidding speaker’s fees from drug
companies for any employee, including nearly 8,000 with Harvard
faculty appointments. Some other medical schools have taken similar
actions in prohibiting faculty members from being paid by drug
companies to speak about their products.
But no other academic medical centers have so restricted participation
in boards of directors.
“We’re the first to go in this deep, and we’re still into it only up
to our knees,” said Dr. Eugene Braunwald, a Harvard professor and
former Partners chief academic officer who was chairman of the policy-
writing group. He said the group had “a very spirited debate” before
announcing its compromise in general terms in April, much of it
effective in 2010.
“We thought it was a very good idea to have institutional officials
serve on boards, but we did not want to have personal enrichment,” Dr.
Braunwald said.
The ban on speaking fees was one reason Partners wanted to take a
strong stand on the issue of directors, he added. It would seem
unfair, Dr. Braunwald said, to restrict outside pay of junior faculty
but not senior leaders.
Among the senior officials affected by the policy is Dr. Dennis A.
Ausiello, chief of medicine since 1996 at Massachusetts General and
the Partners chief scientific officer, who serves on Pfizer’s board.
He was paid more than $220,000 by the company last year. Dr. Ausiello
said he would continue in both roles.
Dr. Ausiello said Pfizer and other companies were crucial to translate
academic research into drugs that benefit patients. At Partners, he
has oversight of a research, ventures and licensing office that seeks
to commercialize the hospitals’ intellectual property.
“I’m very proud of my board work,” he said. “I’m not there to make
money. I certainly think I should be compensated fairly and
symmetrically with my fellow board members, but if my institutions
rule otherwise, as they have, I will continue to serve on the board.”
The proper pay for time spent on board meetings under the new policy
was calculated at $500 an hour for a 10-hour day, said Christopher
Clark, a senior lawyer at Partners and director of a new office for
interactions with industry. Stock and options were banned because they
tie the director’s fortunes to company profits.
Some say the restrictions are too tough on well-meaning hospital
leaders. Others say they are too weak to control conflicts of
interest, arguing that corporate directors should not be overseeing
research, managing educational programs or determining elements of
patient care.
“I think that’s a gross conflict for an official of an academic
medical center to be on the board of a pharmaceutical company,” said
Dr. Arnold S. Relman, former editor of The New England Journal of
Medicine and Harvard professor emeritus who has written about
conflicts of interest.
“It’s happening more and more around the country,” he added. “If it
isn’t stopped, I think the academic institutions are going to lose the
confidence of the country and the government and they will no longer
deserve the tax exemption or anything else. They will be part of
industry itself.”
Ann C. Bonham, chief scientific officer for the Association of
American Medical Colleges, said other academic centers were
considering restrictions on director pay from zero to $10,000 a day.
“They’re all taking this very seriously and moving as quickly as they
can,” she said.
Thomas Donaldson, a professor of business ethics at the Wharton School
of the University of Pennsylvania, said: “It strikes me as a breath of
fresh air in a room that’s getting progressively more stale. I hope
this will set a standard for others — hospitals, medical schools.”
Professor Donaldson, who advises large companies on corporate
governance, said dual roles in a hospital and at a drug maker were
“dicey at best” because a director’s duty is to look out for the
corporation’s financial interests.
Senior faculty in leading teaching hospitals are in high demand on
medical product boards, but corporate filings show that Partners and
Harvard Medical have a disproportionate share.
For instance, Dr. Samuel O. Thier was president of Partners when he
was named to the Merck board in 1994. He is now retired from Partners.
Dr. Joseph B. Martin, dean of the Harvard Medical School from 1997 to
2007, was named to the board for Baxter International in 2002. Dr.
Thier and Dr. Martin each receive over $200,000 a year from the
corporate boards.
Dr. Martin, a professor of neurobiology, declined to comment. Dr.
Thier did not return calls seeking comment.
Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky was the original chairman of the Partners
policy commission in 2007, when he was the chief academic officer at
Partners and a $191,000-a-year board member at GlaxoSmithKline, the
pharmaceutical company based in London.
Dr. Podolsky, who left in 2008 to become president of the University
of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said: “It is possible
to find an approach that separates the potentially distorting effects
of the personal benefit, but more importantly the perception of that,
and still work in a constructive way as a board member.”
Dr. Braunwald, who succeeded him as chairman, also had industry ties,
as a director of Astra Pharmaceuticals 20 years ago and as a science
adviser to at least six companies more recently.
“In all fairness,” he said, “what was O.K. three years ago is not O.K.
now.”
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci