Lawyers, Drugs, and Money

September 16, 2010

In a damning new article in the latest issue of Mother Jones magazine, Dr. Carl Elliott, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Bioethics, argues that the university’s system of clinical research “has been so thoroughly co-opted by market forces that many studies have become little more than covert instruments for promoting drugs.” Because of the large sums of money pharmaceutical companies are paying the university, Elliott writes, the institution is too often turning a blind eye to glaring conflicts of interest and serious ethical lapses. In one instance, Elliott contends it may even have lead to the death of a study’s subject. (Minneapolis City Pages)