Hmmm, where have we heard this sort of sordid tale before? Oh right, like 500 gazillion times. Though to be fair to Dr. Sunderland, he did have to keep up the payments on his second summer home in the Bahamas.
WSJ.com - NIH Scientist's Pfizer Links ProbedA senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health may have improperly transferred human-tissue specimens to Pfizer Inc., while receiving several hundred thousand dollars in payments from the company, according to a report being issued today by the staff of a congressional committee.
Investigators for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, in a 26-page report, said a branch chief at the National Institute of Mental Health, Trey Sunderland, had provided to Pfizer more than 3,000 samples of human spinal fluid and plasma, beginning with a 1998 agreement between the NIH scientist and the company. The specimens had been taken from patients with Alzheimer's disease and from volunteers without the affliction.
According to the House report, the samples were NIH property, but “records and interviews provide reasonable grounds to believe that Dr. Sunderland personally received $285,000 in compensation from Pfizer” for providing the company with access to the samples.
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Dr. Sunderland had drawn the scrutiny of the House panel for his dealings with Pfizer two years ago. In June 2004, the same House panel said that Dr. Sunderland had received more than $500,000 in payments from Pfizer from 1999 to 2004 for outside consulting and speaking without any record of prior approval for these activities or disclosure in his government financial-report filings.
Tags: corruption, /Pharmaceuticals
