1
1
1
The next day, he informed readers that the first house that Glaxo built for Nemeroff in Atlanta was up for sale at a price of $1.25 million. "This one sports just five bedrooms, but still plenty of room for storing consulting materials," he wrote.
The Emory investigation found Nemeroff was paid more than $960,000 by Glaxo, from 2000 through 2006, but he listed less than $35,000 on disclosure forms. All totaled, he had earnings of $2.8 million from drug companies between 2000 and 2007, but failed to disclose at least $1.2 million, according to Grassley's reports.
The real outrage toward Insel stems from the reporting that Pascal Goldschmidt, dean of the UM's medical school, told Baskin that Insel guaranteed him Nemeroff would be allowed to apply for NIH research grants, even though Emory had suspended Nemeroff's work on an NIH grant, and in December 2008, placed a 2-year ban on Nemeroff applying for NIH funding. Goldschmidt claimed Emory's ban "was an immediate reaction to the political pressure that the university was under."
Further fanning the flames, was the Chronicle's revelations that Nemeroff is serving on the NIH expert panels that help decide "which grant applications win federal financing," at a time when there is still an ongoing investigation into the NIH's lack of oversight of Emory and conflicts of interest involving Nemeroff, by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General.
After reading Baskin's article, Grassley fired off a letter to Daniel Levinson, the Inspector General, on June 7, 2010. "I was extremely disturbed to read a story today in The Chronicle of Higher Education," he told the IG.
"For almost a year," he wrote, "Dr. Charles Nemeroff has been under investigation by your office for failing to fully disclose his conflicts of interest regarding his grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)."
"During this same time, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the Director of the NIMH was assisting Dr. Nemeroff in obtaining a new job and made assurances that Dr. Nemeroff would be able to apply for new NIMH grants," he said. "I ask that you look into this matter and proceed as you deem appropriate."
On June 7, 2010, Grassley sent a letter to UM president, Donna Shalala, basically stating the same thing except he told her: "I was also troubled by Dr. Goldschmidt's comments that a ban against Dr. Nemeroff from receiving NIH grants was 'an immediate reaction to the political pressure that the university was under.'"
"President Shalala," he wrote, "I hope that you would agree--contrary to Dr. Goldschmidt's views that disciplining researchers for failing to disclose conflicts of interest is merely a political issue--that enforcing federal conflict of interest policy involves ethical and legal issues that ensure taxpayer trust."
In response to the letter, Grassley asked her to provide "all emails and communications by Dr. Goldschmidt," regarding Nemeroff's conflicts of interest and Nemeroff's work and/or grants with the NIH, and "all emails and communications by Dr. Nemeroff," regarding the same, along with all conflict of interest forms filed by Nemeroff with UM.
Money Laundering Operation
Dr Daniel Carlat, author of the Carlat Psychiatry Blog, and the new book, "Unhinged: the Trouble With Psychiatry," explains that "much of the continuing medical education (CME) industry in the United States is a legalized money laundering operation," in a June 10, 2008 blog.
"Rather than paying doctors directly to give accredited CME courses (which is illegal), drug companies pay third party companies to create the courses," he says. "The checks are actually written by the education company, but the ultimate source is clearly the sponsoring pharmaceutical company."
The Harvard scandal represents the "perfect storm" of the CME industry money laundering operation, Carlat reported on his blog.
It's clear that "the majority of money received by these doctors did not come directly from drug companies, but indirectly from various third party companies," he says. "And this is likely the key to the mystery of why the doctors assumed they could ethically hide these payments."
After going through the list of payments posted in the Congressional Record, Carlat found it appeared that "the vast majority of the money eventually reported by the Harvard Trio, a combined $4.2 million over 7 years, was drug company money that was laundered and processed to seem like it wasn't drug company money."
