'Serious Misconduct' by NIH Expert Found--WaPo

[Demeter]

MORE FROM THE CULTURE OF CORRUPTION THAT IS DC TODAY---

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/13/AR2006061301528.html?referrer=email

'Serious Misconduct' by NIH Expert Found
Scientist Did Not Report Sending Tissues to Drug Firm and Getting Paid, Report Says

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 14, 2006; A06



Trey Sunderland, chief of the geriatric psychiatry branch at the National Institute of Mental Health, failed to tell agency officials about his arrangement with the drug giant Pfizer Inc., as required by federal rules, the investigators concluded in a 27-page preliminary report released yesterday.

Sunderland also did not properly disclose arrangements with another company, said the report, which found no wrongdoing by the drug companies. And though the NIH has not released the findings of its own investigation, the House report said the agency has concluded that Sunderland committed "serious misconduct, in violation of HHS ethics rules and federal law and regulation."

Several researchers linked to such failings have avoided closer scrutiny by leaving the NIH in the past two years. But Sunderland's request to retire has been denied -- an option the agency had because, unlike most NIH scientists, he is part of the commissioned corps, one of the nation's seven uniformed services.

At the heart of the investigation is Sunderland's use of spinal fluid collected in the early 1990s by an NIMH scientist, Susan Molchan, who later left the institute. When Molchan -- who once filed sex discrimination charges against Sunderland that were unsuccessful -- sought to resume her research in a different lab in 2004, she learned that many of her 10- to 15-year-old samples, which she hoped to retrieve, were no longer in the NIMH's freezers.

Acting on a complaint from her, House investigators found that Sunderland had sent thousands of specimens -- including some of Molchan's -- to Pfizer under an agreement not approved by NIH officials. Pfizer used the samples in its search for biological markers of Alzheimer's progression, which could have led to a potentially lucrative test. Sunderland ultimately received at least $285,000 in consulting fees for work relating to the specimens, investigators said, as well as more than $300,000 for giving talks and other activities.

[peacetalksforall]

1. It's an epidemic. We are being told to look at avian flu - the epidemic

is among unethical people who watch other unethical people make money and they pick up the 'disease' any which way they have access to.

[sam sarrha]

2. I smell a Medal of Freedom...

[sam sarrha]

3. has the incidence of Alzheimer's increased since High Fructose Corn syrup