Long After the Start of the "War on Terror," a Conflict of Interest about an Anthrax Scare Comes to Light

In May, David Willman writing for the Los Angeles Times broke a story of a somewhat new variant on the conflict of interest theme, one that has not gotten a lot of attention, but should.

The issue was medical, with a twist, - how to best treat a bioterror attack with anthrax engineered to be resistant to multiple drugs, an event that luckily is not known to ever have occurred.  The story came from the bad old days of the "war on terror," but only has now come to light years later.

The Alarm Raiser

The story opened thus,

Over the last decade, former Navy Secretary Richard J. Danzig, a prominent lawyer, presidential advisor and biowarfare consultant to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, has urged the government to counter what he called a major threat to national security.

Terrorists, he warned, could easily engineer a devastating killer germ: a form of anthrax resistant to common antibiotics.

In particular,

Danzig began warning about antibiotic-resistant anthrax after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the mailings of anthrax-laced letters that fall.

The powdered anthrax in the letters killed five people but was not resistant to common antibiotics. Asked what gave rise to his concern about resistant strains, Danzig cited conversations with 'people whose technical skills exceed mine.' One of them, Dr. Robert P. Kadlec, a bioterrorism advisor in the Bush White House, said he and others were concerned that terrorists could develop such a weapon.

Danzig has sounded the alarm in published papers and in private briefings and seminars for biodefense and intelligence officials.

In a 2003 report funded by the Pentagon, "Catastrophic Bioterrorism — What Is To Be Done?" he wrote that it would be 'quite easy' for terrorists to produce antibiotic-resistant anthrax. He has expanded on that theme over the years, including in a 2009 paper for the Pentagon.

In the 2003 report, published while raxi [raxibacumab, an anthrax anti-toxin] was in development at Human Genome, Danzig said a drug to combat resistant strains of anthrax should be produced 'as soon as possible' and that stockpiling such a treatment, 'even if expensive and in limited supply' would deter an attack.

John Vitko Jr., a top Homeland Security official during the Bush and Obama administrations, said he turned frequently to Danzig for advice on biodefense matters — and read and 'paid attention to' his 'Catastrophic Bioterrorism' report.

Note that while Danzig is a lawyer, and certainly not a physician or biomedical researcher, he had major credibility in the defense field, particularly in anti-terrorism, so his recommendations had great influence.

He served as a Pentagon appointee during the Carter administration and as undersecretary and then secretary of the Navy under President Clinton. He has a long-standing interest in biowarfare.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Danzig advised then-Sen. Barack Obama on national security and bioterrorism. After Obama's election, Danzig was named to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, in addition to his consulting positions with the Defense Department and Homeland Security.

So apparently at least partly due to Mr Danzig's persistent warnings, the government took action,

 In 2004, President Bush signed into law Project BioShield, which provided billions of dollars for biodefense drugs.

The contracts are administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, based on advice from federal agencies and consultants. Homeland Security must certify the need for a drug before the government can buy it.

 Danzig, through his seminars, writings and consulting duties, has helped frame the discussion over whether a given biological threat is 'material' and whether the government should stockpile medicines to defend against it.

Also,

Speaking of Danzig's broader role as a government advisor, Vitko said: 'Richard's got incredible insights into this and I think has made major contributions'

He called Danzig one of 'the major bio player' and said his views had informed a range of policy considerations, including 'how many countermeasures do you need, of what kind.'

It was in response to advice from Vitko and his staff that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in 2004 declared anthrax a 'material threat,' the certification required for the government to buy drugs to fight it.

The drug the government bought was raxibacumab, or raxi, an anthrax anti-toxin made by Human Genome Sciences Inc.  

In 2006, the Department of Health and Human Services finalized its first order of raxi — 20,000 doses at a cost of $174 million.

That year, Ridge's successor, Michael Chertoff, signed a second, more specific declaration, adding 'multi-drug-resistant' anthrax to the government's list of material threats.

Asked the basis for the second declaration, Vitko said: 'I think the concern was more forward-looking, and saying, 'How could the threat evolve, and are we prepared for that?''

Since 2009, the Obama administration has ordered an additional 45,000 doses of raxi for $160 million.

There was just one catch.

The Undisclosed Conflict

Mr Danzig had a largely undisclosed conflict of interest.  He was on the board of directors of Human Genome Sciences Inc, the company whose drug his constant warnings and exhortations lead the government to buy.

When Human Genome named Danzig to its board on May 24, 2001, the company's chief executive said his high-level federal experience would 'serve us well.'

He thus was on the board on September 11, 2001, and later when the events on that day and soon after apparently induced him to start sounding the alarm about resistant anthrax, and he stayed on the board as he continued sounding alarms, and after the government started buying his company's drug.

During his 11-year tenure on the board, which ended in August, Danzig collected at least $1,054,255 in director's fees and by cashing in grants of Human Genome stock and stock options, according to Fred Whittlesey of Compensation Venture Group, who reviewed the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings for The Times.

Nearly half of Danzig's compensation came from the stock options, of which he had been granted 184,000 by the end of 2011, Whittlesey said.

Danzig did not seem to think that serving on the board of the company which made the primary drug directed at the perhaps hypothetical disease about which Danzig was sounding the warning constituted any sort of conflict of interest.

Danzig said in an interview that he believed his position at Human Genome posed no conflict.

He said he had tried to improve policymakers' understanding of biodefense issues, including the threat of antibiotic-resistant anthrax, but never lobbied the government to purchase raxi.

'My view was I'm not going to get involved in selling that,' Danzig said. 'But at the same time now, should I not say what I think is right in the government circles with regard to this? And my answer was, 'If I have occasion to comment on this, it ought to be in general, as a policy matter, not as a particular procurement.'

'I feel that I've acted very properly with regard to this'' he said.

He also apparently did not feel he needed to disclose his board membership to most of the people he was trying to persuade to be alarmed about resistant anthrax, and to pursue a treatment, such as that made by the company on whose board he sat.

 A number of senior federal officials whom Danzig advised on the threat of bioterrorism and what to do about it said they were unaware of his role at Human Genome.

Dr. Philip K. Russell, a biodefense official in the George W. Bush administration who attended invitation-only seminars on bioterrorism led by Danzig, said he did not know about Danzig's tie to the biotech company until The Times asked him about it.

Also,

 Vitko said he knew nothing of Danzig's involvement with Human Genome until a Times reporter asked him about it.

'I'm surprised I didn't,' Vitko said. 'I'm not aware of it.'

Five other present or former biodefense officials who conferred with Danzig said they, too, had been unaware of his position with the company. Danzig, they said, made no mention of it in their presence during group discussions he led or in smaller meetings.

Furthermore,

A Times search found seven papers Danzig had written on bioterrorism since 2001. In only one of those did he disclose his tie to Human Genome.

As an advisor to the federal government, Danzig is required to file confidential forms annually, revealing any outside affiliations but not his related compensation. Danzig said he had noted his position with the biotech firm on the forms.

Asked whether he mentioned his corporate role during contacts with government officials, Danzig replied: 'If I thought any of it posed a potential conflict that might cause somebody who knew about it to discount my views, I would tell them.'

Some people disagreed with Danzig's failure to perceive a conflict of interest

 'Holy smoke—that was a horrible conflict of interest,' said Russell, a physician and retired Army major general who helped lead the government's efforts to prepare for biological attacks.

The Take-Over by a Familiar Corporation

By the way, Human Genome Science was eventually bought out by a bigger company which has had its own sets of issues regarding conflicts of interest, GlaxoSmithKline,

 Human Genome was acquired by GlaxoSmithKline in August [presumably 2012] for $3.6 billion.

It may yet stand to make even more money from raxi,

 Because raxi loses its potency after three years in storage, the government's supply will expire as of 2015, according to federal documents and people familiar with the matter. 

Summary

This appears to be a variant on the "key opinion leader" (KOL) theme writ large.  Mr Danzig clearly functioned as a very major key opinion leader about bioterrorism.  Like many KOLs we have previously discussed, he had financial interests that favored the company whose drugs his key opinion leadership seemed to be favoring.  His influence seems to have lead to huge purchases of these drugs. Like many KOLs who are physicians or health care academics, Mr Danzig seems utterly blind to the possibility that his multiple efforts to emphasize the importance of the supposed disease for which his company made a drug could somehow be viewed as a conflict of interest, or to why failure to tell his audiences about his major relationship to this company might have appeared just a small bit dishonest.  We have seen many medical/ health care KOLs who deny that somehow their opinions could have been influenced by their financial relationships, or that their audiences deserved at least to be aware of these relationships.  Yet, of course, Mr Danzig is not a doctor, and he was trying to influence government purchasers of drugs, not physician prescribers of it.

It does seem that the leadership of health care organizations, particularly but certainly not limited to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, have no lack of imagination about how to construct financial relationships with influential people who could help sell their products, whether or not they acknowledge what amounts to their marketing roles.

Given that this story involved influencing the government, it will be interesting to see at this late date whether it results in any legal action.  After all, as David Willman pointed out,

 Federal law bars U.S. officials, including consultants, from giving advice on matters in which they or a company on whose board they serve have 'a financial interest.'

It will also be interesting to see if it gets any more attention.  Only a few blogs have noted it, but at least they included The Scientist.


Yet our country has an unfortunately very long history of corporate leaders getting close to political leaders who then may overlook the legal niceties when their friends' interests are at stake.  Nonetheless, true health care reform would require all those who have decision making power over patients, health policy, or the public health to be completely transparent about their conflicts of interest, and would ban the more serious variants of conflicts of interest, even if that might cost some already rich people a bit of money.  I am not holding my breath, however, about when this might happen.