How Can We Promote Evidence-Based Medicine Under a Regime that Insists on Its Power to Say "2+2=5"?

Introduction: Evidence-Based Medicine

We have consistently advocated for Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), which is about medical-decision making based on critical review of the best applicable evidence from clinical research informed by knowledge of biology and medicine, of the patient's biopsychosocial circumstances, the patient's values, and of ethics and morality. Since EBM depends on the availability of evidence from the best clinical research, we have advocated for the integrity of clinical research, and decried  manipulation of clinical research done to increase the likelihood that its results would please vested interests, and suppression of research whose results offended such vested interest, sometimes done when manipulation did not succeed in producing such pleasing results.

Addressing such threats to the evidence-based required challenging the role of large for-profit corporations, principally pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and device companies, in clinical research.  In doing so, we depended on support from other concerned health care professionals and scientists.  Sometimes, when manipulation and suppression crossed over the line to become fraud and deceptive marketing, government regulators and lawyers stepped in.  We have discussed numerous legal settlements involving penalties - admittedly, often less severe than we would have preferred  - on particular corporations.

So we have counted on governments having a shared interest in promoting the integrity of clinical research, and more broadly of clinical and public health science, and when necessary, acting to enforce such integrity.  

However, we have increasing reason to doubt these shared interests under the current US regime.



Administration Comfort with Suppression of Speech about Research

Consider episodes in which political appointees of the Trump regime seemed comfortable with the suppression of speech about medical, health care and public health research.

In 2016, we discussed several cases in which officials at the Department of Health and Human Services stifled responses to journalists about scientific issues.  In particular, employees of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) were told not to respond to any journalists' requests for information, even "simple data-related questions," in lieu of responses from agency public relations personnel.

In 2017, we discussed how President Trump's first Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr Tom Price, had been involved in attempted suppression of the results of research about the drug Bildil at the behest of a previous campaign donor.

In addition, three recent episodes, one from August, 2019,  two more in late October, suggest that under Trump, open discussion of the science pertaining to health care and public health, and the pursuit of scientific truth in these areas have been increasingly subordinated to politics, and particularly to supporting the notion that the President is sole keeper of all truth. 

Silencing National Intstitute of Mental Health (NIMH) Scientists about the Relationship of Mental Health to Violence to Avoid Contradiction of a Trump Tweet


Per a Washington Post article from August 20, 2019, after mass shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH,

'Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger. Not the gun,' Trump said immediately after the shootings. In the following days, he reiterated that statement, arguing that the United States should reopen mental institutions shuttered decades ago as a way to address mass shootings.

But then,

federal health officials made sure no government experts might contradict him.

A Health and Human Services directive on Aug. 5 warned communication staffers not to post anything on social media related to mental health, violence and mass shootings without prior approval.

The particulars were as follows:

On Aug. 5, Trump was scheduled to speak following the weekend shootings. That morning, some HHS employees, including those at the National Institutes of Health, received an email asking those who contribute to official social media accounts to hold off on posts until 'we get the green light from HHS,'

Then,

some employees received another email from Renate Myles, an NIH spokeswoman. Social media posts could resume, the note said, butemployees were asked to 'please send any [social media] posts related to mental health, violence or other topics associated with mass shootings for review before posting.'

The second directive applied most directly to the National Institutes of Mental Health, where nearly all of the agency’s social media activities relate to mental health. It remains unclear how many people received that instruction, which was lifted by week’s end.

The administration's explanation was:

'It’s the department’s long-standing practice to not get ahead of the president’s remarks,' HHS spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said. 'This allows the president to share his message first with the nation. Any suggestions that this was a formal policy put in place related to social media, or meant to stymie work on this issue, are factually inaccurate. These were staff-level discussions seeking to be sensitive and respectful to the victims and their families affected by tragedies of that weekend.'

However,

By contrast, two former senior health officials in the Obama administration said they did not recall ever receiving such a directive after a mass shooting.

Also,

In the days and months following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which killed 20 first-graders and six staff members, the National Institutes of Mental Health spoke extensively about mental illness and violence. 'The conversation has evolved, recognizing that violence most often associated with mental illness is suicide, and that most violence is unrelated to mental illness,' the NIMH director said at a meeting three months later. NIMH also hosted a special panel discussion, How Sandy Hook is Changing the Conversation,' during which mental health experts worked to dispel stereotypes that link mental illness to violence.

After this month’s shootings, however, NIMH and its director were largely silent on the shooting. The only mention on the official NIMH Twitter account was a retweet of the NIH account, directing those struggling with grief and emotional distress to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for counseling and support.

Furthermore,

An HHS employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions said he had 'no doubt this was meant to prevent anybody from making any statements that might contradict the president.'

The Post consulted one ethics expert:

'To say that scientists and experts who know the data and facts best are not allowed to speak — that’s very concerning,' said Dominic Sisti, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies ethics in mental health and psychiatry.

Silencing the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)  and National Toxicology Program to Support Industries Favored by the Administration

The case had to do with the health risks posed by PFAS, industrial chemicals found in the environment.

Per an October 24, 2019 article in The Intercept, the background is:

the company that first developed both PFOA and PFOS and sold PFOA to DuPont for many years, still argues that the compounds do not cause health problems. In her testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in September, Denise Rutherford, 3M’s senior vice president of corporate affairs, said that 'the weight of scientific evidence has not established that PFOS, PFOA, or other PFAS cause adverse human health effects.' The company also requested that The Intercept remove the word “cause” in a recent article about PFAS. That request was denied.

However, Linda Birnbaum, recently retired director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, thought

'In my mind, PFAS cause health effects because you have the same kind of effects reported in multiple studies in multiple populations,' she said in a phone interview. Birnbaum pointed in particular to longitudinal studies, which follow populations’ exposures and health over time. 'You have longitudinal studies showing the same effects in multiple populations done by multiple investigators and you have animal models showing the same impact,' said Birnbaum. In addition, she pointed to studies that show the mechanism through which PFAS chemicals cause harm in people.

'That is pretty good evidence that PFAS or certain PFAS can cause health effects in people. It is not as strong for every effect, but there are quite a number of effects where they’re strong enough to say ‘caused,’' Birnbaum said. She pointed in particular to the relationship between the chemicals and immune response, kidney cancer, and cholesterol in humans, saying, 'That data is very clear.'

Dr Birnbaum had upset industry in the past, but in particular,

Her run-in with Republicans on the House Science Committee last year may have had the most severe consequences. Reps. Andy Biggs and Lamar Smith accused Birnbaum of lobbying based on an editorial in the journal PLOS Biology. In it, Birnbaum wrote that 'U.S. policy has not accounted for evidence that chemicals in widespread use can cause cancer and other chronic diseases, damage reproductive systems, and harm developing brains at low levels of exposure once believed to be harmless.' She called for more research on the risks posed by chemicals and noted that 'closing the gap between evidence and policy will require that engaged citizens — both scientists and non-scientists — work to ensure that our government officials pass health-protective policies based on the best available scientific evidence.'

Under the Trump administration, there were consequences:

'everything was scrutinized that I did. Everything I did required clearance. Even in my lab,' said Birnbaum. 'All of a sudden, everything had to go up at least to building 1,' she said, referring to the Bethesda building that serves as the administrative center for the National Institutes of Health. Birnbaum was also denied a salary increase after the incident and became aware that her job was at stake. 'I was told that they were trying to fire to me.'

Also,

Birnbaum was not allowed to use the word 'cause' when referring to the health effects from PFAS or other chemicals.

'I was banned from doing it'” said Birnbaum. 'I had to use ‘association’ all the time. If I was talking about human data or impacts on people, I had to always say there was an association with a laundry list of effects.' Birnbaum said this restriction 'was coming from the office of the deputy director. His job hinged on controlling me.'

Again, while there is room for debate about whether PFAS causes the problems, or are simply associated with the problems.  However, the accusation is not that there was debate within the government, but that Dr Birnbaum's government supervisor silenced her opinions about causation, whaterver the evidence on which she based them.

Silencing the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Climate and Health Program About "Climate Change"

On October 29, 2019, CBS News reported that Dr George Luber, Director of the CDC Climate and Health Program, had to stop talking about "climate change," particularly its health consequences,

In late 2016 Luber was organizing a climate change conference. Al Gore was to be the keynote speaker. But right after Donald Trump was elected president, Luber's boss called him in.

Luber recalled, 'I was told the optics are not good and that I needed to cancel it.'

Correspondent Mark Strassmann asked, 'Did he explain what the optics issue was?'

"That the meeting was happening three weeks after the inauguration."

'And that the White House would be unhappy?'

'Yeah,' Dr. Luber said.

America's new president had a dim view of Luber's science, referring to climate change as a hoax, 'created by and for the Chinese.'

Dr. Luber said his boss wanted something else: 'Just don't say 'climate change.' Can you call it 'extreme weather?' Can you call it something else?'

Strassmann said, 'You're saying that the Centers for Disease Control was suddenly afraid to use the term 'climate change'?'

'Yeah. Absolutely. I was told to use a different term,' he said.

CBS confronted Dr Patrick Breyesse, Dr Luber's manager, who essentially gave a non-denial denial:

He's the senior manager who Dr. Luber said ordered him to scuttle the science conference.

'It wasn't cancelled; we postponed it,' Dr. Breysse said.

'You didn't feel any pressure at all?' Strassmann asked.

'No.'

'Politically?'

"No."

That conference happened, but without CDC sponsorship.

Strassmann asked, 'Were any CDC employees ever told, 'Stop using the phrase 'climate change'?'

'Not to my knowledge,' Dr. Breysse replied, 'but we did discuss it.'

'That you change from 'climate change' to 'extreme weather,' because 'climate change' was more radioactive?'

'We talked about making the change, but we never made the change.'

Meanwhile, it appears that CDC leadership retaliated against Dr Luber,

In March 2018 the CDC revoked Dr. Luber's badge, phone and credentials. He was escorted off the property. The CDC moved to fire him. He faced more than 30 'troubling allegations,' from falsifying timecards to seeming hung over. Dr. Luber refuted all but one charge, and was allowed to stay.

However,

Dr. Luber still works at the CDC, but potentially faces up to a four-month suspension. He has to work from home, where he reviews scientific papers unrelated to climate change.

When asked about that, Dr Breyesse responded

'I can't talk about personnel matters, I'm sorry, Mark,' he responded.

'Has he been banned from the campus?'

'So, that's a personnel matter that I can't discuss.'

'Is the CDC retaliating against him?'

'I'm just not going to comment on that,' he said.

A Larger Pattern

To summarize, in the second half of 2019, we have seen three episodes of scientists/ health care professionals at the premier US government health and public health agencies silenced about relevant issues to apparently avoid contradicting Trump administration political goals and/or the pronouncements of the President himself.  There is reason to suspect that agency leaders punished or retaliated against the scientists and health professionals for speaking out.

These appear to be part of a larger pattern.  There have been a lot of similar episodes involving other kinds of science.  For example, there was the infamous case of government climate scientists attacked after they contradicted a Trump tweeted his erroneous take on the course of Hurricane Dorian.  As the New York Times reported on September 8, 2019:  

The Secretary of Commerce threatened to fire top employees at the federal scientific agency responsible for weather forecasts last Friday after the agency’s Birmingham office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama, according to three people familiar with the discussion.

That threat led to an unusual, unsigned statement later that Friday by the agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, disavowing the National Weather Service’s position that Alabama was not at risk. The reversal caused widespread anger within the agency and drew accusations from the scientific community that the National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA, had been bent to political purposes.

After that episode, the National Task Force on Rule of Law and Democracy developed a report on government attaacks on the integrity and rigor of government research, as summarized in an op-ed in the Washington Post on October 3, 2019, entitled "Under Trump, the integrity of government research is in shambles." The authors wrote,

This isn’t the first time this administration has retaliated against scientists for doing their jobs. The Agriculture Department recently decided to relocate an entire staff of career economists from Washington to the Kansas City area after they published reports on the financial harms of Trump’s trade policies. The Interior Department moved a climate scientist to an accounting role after he stressed the dangers of climate change to Alaska’s Native communities. A recent tally by the Union of Concerned Scientists listed more than 120 attacks on science by the Trump administration.

The report called for a variety of legislative solutions, but these may be insufficient.

The pattern may be even larger.  In the Atlantic, Quinta Jurecic, the managing editor of Lawfare, wrote on September 11, 2019,

The saga of Dorian is a snapshot of Trump’s refusal to accept the reality of a world that looks any different from what he wants to be true, and a demonstration of how such an instinct in a leader is incompatible with the requirements of democracy.

Furthermore,

Trump’s behavior regarding Dorian is yet another example of his strained relationship with the truth, something that is at this point so routine as to be barely worth commenting on. In the language of the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, he is a 'bullshitter'—someone who does not so much lie in order to consciously obscure the truth as make statements without any thought or care to what the truth might be. Bullshit, Frankfurt argues, is careless, in that it requires no commitment to a stable universe of facts. And Trump’s falsehoods are careless insofar as he makes them without any regard for consistency or internal logic, but there is also a stubbornness to them. His bullshit is a way of insisting that the world take the shape he wants it to have, regardless of the facts on the ground.

Government by BS is not just a threat to science and scientific discussion.

Democracy, as Arendt writes, depends on the existence of a shared universe of mutually agreed-upon facts—like whether or not it is raining in Alabama. It also depends on the willingness of leaders to acknowledge that some things, including the weather, are beyond their control. That is not Donald Trump’s way. He is the strong man standing alone at the front of the crowd, who is strong only when there is no one there to tell him differently.

Trump seems to want to be like the Inner Party in Orwell's 1984. In Part III, Chapter 2, when Inner Party member O'Brien interrogates and tortures Winston Smith, he says:

reality is not external.  Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.  Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal.  Whatever the Party holds to be truth, is truth.  It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of Party.  

So when O'Brien holds up his hand with four fingers extended, and Smith says he sees four fingers,

And if the Party says that it is not four but five - then how many?

The Party says the answer must be "five"

So the answer to the question posed by the title of this post is "we can't"

As long as we are led by a President who believes he has the power to make 2 + 2 equal "5," we will be unable to meaningfully promote clinical research integrity, much less evidence-based medicine.  Any progress will only come with a new President.  

First the NIH Came for the Iranian Born Legal US Resident Scientists

Transparency, honesty, and collaboration are necessary to do science, including biomedical and clinical science right.  In the US, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have always had a good reputation for transparency, honesty and collaboration, although they have had some revolving door and conflict of interest issues of late (look here, here, here here, and here).

However, an April 3 article in the Washington Post suggests that things are going downhill. The lede was:

The National Institutes of Health is requiring all visitors — including patients — to disclose their citizenship as a condition of entry, a policy that has unnerved staff scientists and led to recent disputes with at least two Iranian scientists invited to make presentations, only to be blocked from campus.

The most important point was that although the two scientists were born in Iran, they were both legal US residents who had apparently lived in this country for a long time.

In one incident, a Georgetown University graduate student arriving for a job interview was held up at security, then allowed to proceed to one of the campus buildings. But as he prepared to make a presentation, NIH police arrived, removed him from a lab and escorted him off campus, according to a complaint Monday to a group that represents staff scientists.

In another, a brain researcher said he was told to leave, then delayed at security for nearly an hour filling out online forms. After interventions by NIH police and other officials, he was told an exception had been made that would allow him to deliver his presentation to the two dozen waiting researchers.

Both men had green cards and U.S. driver’s licenses and had previously visited NIH without incident.

There was no obvious reason,other than their Iranian birth, to be suspicious of these two men. In particular,

'I am very surprised and disappointed that there are all these restrictions,' said the brain researcher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing his relationships at NIH. He said he worked at NIH from 2009 to 2014 on an H-1B visa and had been invited to speak on his specialty last week. As recently as two months ago, he said, he had no problem entering the campus.

The actions seemed to have had their genesis in a post 9/11 policy that was never previously enforced.

NIH officials say the policy is not new — although they acknowledge posting a sign recently that says all visitors must disclose their citizenship in the NIH security building, known as the Gateway Center. People who work at the Bethesda, Md., campus said they had never heard of such questioning until the past few weeks.

An April 2 email obtained by The Washington Post describes a senior-level meeting Tuesday, at which the chief executive of the NIH Clinical Center, James Gilman, recounted how a long-standing policy 'was never followed, and apparently in the past few days, security started following it, including signs at the visitor entrances that say they will ask for it [citizenship],' according to a person who attended the meeting.

The excuse may be that the agency has recently come under congressional pressure to be more vigilant about industrial espionage, especially having to do with China.

In recent months, NIH and the FBI have warned U.S. scientists to beware of Chinese spies intent on stealing biomedical research from NIH-funded laboratories at universities.

Under pressure from lawmakers, led by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), NIH said in January it had referred 12 allegations of foreign influence over U.S. research to the HHS inspector general.

What the reported events had to do with China or industrial espionage is not obvious.  The Post article did suggest that

NIH — a research institution built on collaboration — is apparently following protocols used by federal security agencies that deal with highly sensitive or classified information and require top-secret security clearances for their employees. Visitors to those facilities must disclose their citizenship, and foreign nationals are provided with a badge different from those worn by U.S. citizens, security officials said.

Again, why the NIH should be viewed as similar to agencies dealing with top-secret information is unclear.

At least some NIH scientists are voicing concern about the new policies

One NIH researcher, G. Marius Clore, forwarded a complaint Monday to an elected committee that represents scientific staff, according to a summary of his remarks obtained by The Post. In the summary, Clore is quoted as saying that the incident involving the Georgetown graduate student is 'something that [NIH leadership] needs to address right away. If this sort of thing gets out, nobody is going to want to come and work at NIH.'

An Apology, but No Clear Changes

A second Washington Post story, of course published late on a Friday, indicated that Dr Francis Collins, Director of the NIH, apologized for the treatment of the two Iranian born US legal residents:

In an email Friday to all NIH personnel, Collins said he is 'deeply troubled' that a Georgetown University graduate student was interrupted during a presentation that was part of an application for a postdoctoral fellowship and escorted from campus. He said he has 'extended a personal apology to this individual.'

'I also have learned of another non-U. S. citizen who had to miss the first day of a two-day meeting because of visitor clearance issues. I am also reaching out to that person to express regret,' Collins wrote.

In the email, Collins said the visitor clearance process 'was mishandled by security staff.'

Note that he did not acknowledge that the two scientists were legal US residents.

More importantly, Dr Collins did not personally acknowledge responsibility for his security staff's actions, indicate that he actually could control their actions, or promise any change in the policy.  At best, his email stated:

This policy has not been well communicated.

Further,

We are reviewing procedures associated with this policy to ensure that all our guests, no matter where they are from, are treated with utmost respect and consideration, and that NIH staff understand their responsiblities in ensuring the necessary requirements are met.

Again, he did not state that NIH security would stop asking visitors about their citizenship, or would not restrict access to non-secret activities or facilities according to peoples' place of birth.

So far, despite its implications, this case seems to be relatively anechoic.  The first WaPo article has appeared in other papers, and a summary of it appeared in The Scientist.  However, I have found nothing more so far other than the WaPo story of the "apology."

Discussion

Impeding collaborations at the NIH with scientists who come from particular disfavored countries obviously could impede the progress of biomedical and clinical science.

Note that the WaPo article suggested that citizenship questions are also being asked of patients entering the campus, raising the spectre of patients born in disfavored countries being denied care.  That could obviously harm their care.

Furthermore, active discrimination by a US government agency against scientists and patients according to their place of birth seems to deny their "equal protection under the law," as promised by the 14th amendment to the US Constitution.

Finally, a government institution involved in science and health care discriminating against people according to their ethnicity has a certain whiff of dictatorship and fascism. This whiff is accentuated under a regime that has a track record of singling out people by their ethnicity and/or religion.  As we noted here, its previously proposed bans of immigrants from certain countries has already impacted health care.  As Martin Neimoller famously wrote regarding the Nazi regime in Germany,

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 Visitors stand in front of the quotation from Martin Niemöller that is on display in the Permanent Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Niemöller was a Lutheran minister and early Nazi supporter who was later imprisoned for opposing Hitler's regime. - US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Who will speak for the Iranian born scientists kept out of the NIH?

It certainly make sense for the US to be on guard for industrial espionage.  But this goes way too far. 

For Whom the Door Revolves: Founder and Director of Multiple Biotechnology Companies Became Director of the NCI and Now Nominated to be Acting Commissioner of the FDA

Dr Scott Gottlieb, the first commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appointed by President Trump, has announced his plans to depart.  At the time of his nomination, Dr Gottlieb's many conflicts of interest were well known (see this NY Times article, for example), as were his exceedingly friendly views of the pharmaceutical/ biotechnology industry (see this long ago post, for example).


President Trump's regime just announced a new acting commissioner, Dr Norman ("Ned") E Sharpless, another industry fan.


Founder and Director of Several Biotechnology Companies

G1 Therapeutics

As StatNews just reported, Sharpless "founded two biotech companies."  His fans cited as proof of the "breadth of his experience,"

the $105 million that G1 Therapeutics, a company Sharpless co-founded, raised in 2017 while developing the lung and breast cancer drug trilaciclib.

Apparently, his work in industry has made Dr Sharpless rich

According to public records, founding these companies may have paid off.  Sharpless reported selling more than 400,000 shares of G1 Therapeutics in October 2017 - which, at the time, were worth more than $9 million.

So far, I have seen no other recent reporting that goes into any detail about Dr Sharpless' connections to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.  Nor did I see much reporting about these relationships from the time Dr Sharpless was appointed to head the National Cancer Institute in October, 2017, again by the Trump regime.

A little digging provided a bit more detail about his relationship to G1 Therapeutics.Crunchbase revealed that Dr Sharpless was a Co-Founder of G1 Therapeutics, a member of its Scientific Advisory Board, and a member of its board of directors.  A  press release from the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center did gush a bit about his ability to raise capital for G1 Therapeutics in May, 2017, a few months before he was appointed to head the NCI.

G1 Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage oncology company in Research Triangle Park with ties to the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, has raised approximately $108.6 million in an initial public offering of its stock. The company began trading on the NASDAQ Global Market under the ticker symbol 'GTHX' on May 17.

Furthermore,

Founded in 2008 with support from KickStart Venture Services, a UNC-Chapel Hill program that works to turn University research into new companies, G1 is developing novel therapeutics based on discoveries made by UNC Lineberger Director Norman E. Sharpless, MD, and Kwok-Kin Wong, MD, PhD, then at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and now at the Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Langone Medical Center. The early research that led to the formation of G1 was supported by the University Cancer Research Fund.

'Congratulations to Dr. Sharpless and the entire G1 Therapeutics team for achieving this major milestone, making an impressive market debut and accelerating important advances in cancer therapies,' said Judith Cone, Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at UNC-Chapel Hill.

It was an advance in raising capital, although the eventual clinical value of the venture may not yet be clear.  Trilaciclib is apparently still under development and has not been yet subject to big randomized clinical trials.

Sapere Bio


StatNews also reported,

The second company that Sharpless-directed science helped spawn is Sapere Bio, also based in North Carolina

which is

developing a diagnostic text to measure a patient's 'molecular age.'

whatever that may be, and whatever use it may turn out to have, or not.


There is not much more information about Dr Sharpless' relationship with Sapere Bio.  In February, 2019, the WRAL Tech Wire stated,

Physician Norman 'Ned' Sharpless and Natalia Mitin, Ph.D., founded Sapere Bio in 2013. It was originally called HealthSpan Diagnostics, a reference to the period in your life when you’re healthy. The company grew out of the research of Sharpless, who at the time was director of the Lineberger Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Apparently, by the time this article was written, he was "no longer involved" with the company.


Consulting and Other Financial Relationships

Further web searching revealed that Dr Sharpless had to disclose other financial relationships with health care corporations in the past.  In 2017, he was one of multiple authors on a paper in The Oncologist (Patel NM et al. Enhancing next-generation sequencing-guided cancer care through cognitive computing. Oncologist 2017; 22: 1-7.)

Norman E. Sharpless: G1 Therapeutics, Unity Biotechnology, HealthSpan Diagnostics (C/A, IP,SAB, OI), Pfizer (H)

Where

(C/A) Consulting/advisory relationship; (RF) Research funding; (E) Employment; (ET) Expert testimony; (H) Honoraria received; (OI) Ownership interests; (IP) Intellectual property rights/ inventor/patent holder; (SAB) Scientific advisory board

The ProPublica Trump Town database also stated that Dr Sharpless was a former consultant to Unity Biotechnology and that

Compensation to be an advisor to Unity is solely through an option to purchase up to 50,000 shares of their stock. Roughly half of these options are unvested.

I cannot find anything more about Dr Sharpless' relationship to Unity Biotechnology, which is apparently yet another start-up biotechnology corporation with drugs in the development pipeline.
 
Again, it appears that Dr Sharpless may have ended these relationships when he became NCI director.  A disclosure in December, 2018, for a talk he gave at the American Society of Hematology included

Sharpless: Pfizer(relationship ended): Honoraria; G1 Therapeutics (relationship ended): Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; G1 Therapeutics (divested): Equity Ownership; Healthspan Diagnostics (relationship ended): Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Healthspan Diagnostics (divested): Equity Ownership; Unity Biotechnology (divested): Equity Ownership; Unity Biotechnology (relationship ended): Membership on an entity's Board of Directors or advisory committees; Unity Biotechnology (relinquished)

Summary

Dr Norman "Ned" E Sharpless is clearly an experienced academic physician, and hence is a welcome contrast with the many ill-informed ideologues lacking any experience or expertise in biomedical research, medicine, health care or public health recently appointed to important US government health care related positions (for the most recent example, look here).

However, while he held a major academic leadership position, Dr Sharpless had multiple important conflicts of interest, including founding and serving on the boards of directors of several for-profit biotechnology companies, as well as having other financial relationships with health care corporations.  He apparently had already become rich via these relationships before he became director of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), although he apparently ended the relationships when he assumed the directorship.  As the head of the NCI, he was in a position to have some influence over US health care research policy affecting the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.  Hence his appointment to that position was an example of the revolving door.

Now about one and one-half year later, his position as acting commissioner of the FDA will give him much more influence over pharma and biotech.  This appointment is an even more strking example of the revolving door.

Both examples seem to have so far gotten lost in the continuing chaos generated by the Trump regime.

Yet, as we have said until blue in the face, and most recently less than a month ago...

The revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

The ongoing parade of people transiting the revolving door from industry to the Trump regime once again suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have disproportionate influence on how the government works.  The country is increasingly being run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry. This has been termed crony capitalism. The latest cohort of revolving door transits suggests that regulatory capture is likely to become much worse in the near future.

Remember to ask: cui bono? Who benefits? The net results are that big health care corporations increasingly control the governmental regulatory and policy apparatus.  This will doubtless first benefit the top leadership and owners/ stockholders (when applicable) of these organizations, who are sometimes the same people, due to detriment of patients' and the public's health, the pocketbooks of tax-payers, and the values and ideals of health care professionals.  

 The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.

Spin it Again - Four More Go Through the Revolving Door From the World of Corporate Health Care to Top US Government Leadership Positions

While we were distracted by the daily onslaught of news, it appears that the revolving door continues to spin.

This month there has been a flurry of transitions from big health care and health care related corporations to the federal government.  So it appeared to be time for another revolving door update.


We start with a transition from a few months ago that we had not previously discussed, and then list in chronologic order those occurring this month.

Dr Kurt Rasmussen from Senior Research Advisor, Eli Lilly & Co to Director of the Division of Therapuetics and Medical Consequences, National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA)

This was noted in Stat News Plus, behind a pay wall, and in an official announcement from NIDA on April 30, 2018,

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, welcomed Dr. Kurt Rasmussen today as the Director of the Division of Therapeutics and Medical Consequences (DTMC). Dr. Rasmussen’s career spans more than 30 years of research and leadership experiences in pharmacology and neuroscience therapeutics.

Dr. Rasmussen comes to NIDA from Eli Lilly & Co., where he served as a senior research advisor, leading drug discovery research programs.

At least he is an actual biomedical researcher.

I could not find any information on whether he has ongoing financial ties to Eli Lilly, e.g., stock holdings.

Dr Richard Stone from Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton, [a Management Consultancy] to Temporary Executive in Charge of the Veterans Health Administration

Per the Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2018,

The Department of Veterans Affairs will replace the acting head of its health care system with a temporary appointee on Wednesday, the VA’s acting secretary said Tuesday, though the department still hasn’t settled on a permanent replacement to lead the sprawling division.

Dr. Richard Stone will take over the Veterans Health Administration, the VA’s acting secretary, Peter O’Rourke, told reporters. The health administration is one of the three main branches of the VA and comprises more than 1,500 health-care facilities, thousands of physicians and nurses and a budget of about $70 billion to treat some nine million veterans.

Also

Dr. Stone, a retired Army doctor, previously served at the VA as deputy undersecretary for health before becoming a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton focused on military health.

Booz Allen Hamilton is a management consulting firm.  The Booz Allen Hamilton press release of January 29, 2016, issued when Dr Stone joined the firm, described his responsibilities 

General Stone will serve as medical advisor for Booz Allen’s healthcare clients who are transforming healthcare delivery in the defense, civil, and commercial markets. He will assume a leadership role in the firm’s work for the Military Health System (MHS) across the Services and ultimately across the new Defense Health Agency (DHA) and Enhanced Multi-Service Markets (eMSMs).

Booz Allen Hamilton apparently does not widely advertise the identities of its clients, but on the Markets section of its website, claims

We serve commercial clients across all industries, including some of the largest organizations in critical infrastructure sectors like financial services, energy, healthcare, and manufacturing, and we have a thriving cadre of international clients in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

So presumably Dr Stone had responsibilities helping big commercial health care firms improve their bottom lines. In his new position, Dr Stone may be in a position to influence how some such big firms interact with the VA in an administration that is increasingly advocating privatization of many VA functions.

Paul Mango from Director, McKinsey & Company, [a Management Consultancy] to Chief of Staff and Principal Deputy Administrator, Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)

Per the Philadelphis Inquirer on July 24, 2018,

Paul Mango, a former health-care consultant who lost a bid this year to be the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, is joining the Trump administration.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is housed in the Department of Health and Human Services, on Tuesday named Mango chief of staff and chief principal deputy administrator.
In addition,

Mango, who lives outside Pittsburgh, was a longtime executive at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

It appeared he needed something new to do.  He had left his very long-term position with McKinsey & Company to run for Governor of Pennsylvania in 2017, per Politics PA,

PoliticsPA has learned that Gubernatorial Candidate Paul Mango of Allegheny County is no longer with McKinsey & Company. This move could signal he is closer to an official announcement of a run for Governor.

Mango left the firm earlier this year. He joined McKinsey in 1988,

But then, per the Inquirer,

He finished second in a three-candidate primary in May for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, losing to former State Sen. Scott Wagner.

leaving Mr Mango temporarily unemployed.  His new employment apparently was not due to any actual background or expertise in medicine, health care, or public health,

An Army veteran, Mango graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and Harvard Business School.

The Inquirer article suggests Mr Tango was attractive to the Trump regime more for his political views than any expertise or lack thereof in health care,

Mango ran as a social conservative who attacked Wagner for supporting anti-discrimination legislation that would protect LGBT individuals. He said during the campaign that he supported work requirements for able-bodied adults on Medicaid. The Trump administration has adopted that approach.

Mr Mango does claim expertise as a business manager in the health care sphere.  He has an affiliation with the University of Pennsylvania's  Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics in the Leonard Davis Institute.  His profile there explains his former work at McKinsey thus,

Mr. Paul Mango is a Director for McKinsey & Company and leads the North American Payor/Provider practice. Mr. Mango has been addressing new approaches to medical management, development of distinctive service strategies, physician channel management effectiveness, and applying lean manufacturing principles to patient care delivery processes. He has led health care engagements spanning a broad spectrum of strategy, operations and organization topics related to these new approaches. Paul works extensively with some of the country’s largest payers and providers....

McKinsey & Company does not advertise its clients, but it is likely that the Payor/ Provider group worked with major, non-profit and for-profit hospital systems and health insurers.  Its website discusses its "payor strategy" thus,

The challenges facing the leaders of payor organizations—improving financial performance, increasing cost effectiveness, improving population health status, and boosting quality of care—are not new. What is different today is the increasing need to address them all.

Our strategy work focuses on driving value. The starting point varies depending on the clients and geography, but whether we are supporting a public payor, a private payor, or a mix, we have a deep understanding of the complexities our clients face and can draw upon our international experience for best practices and key insights.

Its website also discusses "provider performance" thus,

We help hospitals implement strategies, operating models, and organizational enhancements that sustain improvements in quality of care and boost cost effectiveness.

So presumably Mr Tango's responsibilities including the cost effectiveness of commercial health insurance firms and quite possibly for-profit hospital systems.  In his new position with CMS, Mr Mango may be in able to influence how big payors and providers interact with the Medicare and Medicaid systems, potentially to their benefit.


Chris Traylor from the [Health Care Consultancy] Advanced Perspectives Group to Deputy Administrator for Strategic Iniatives for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of DHHS

On July 24, 2018, an announcement from CMS noted that Chris Taylor was joining the organization along with Mr Mango,

Chris Traylor joins the Office of the Administrator as the Deputy Administrator for Strategic Initiatives. Chris comes to CMS with over 26 years of public sector service in the area of healthcare and social services. His lengthy public service career in Texas concluded in 2016 when he retired as the Executive Commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) after previously serving as the commission’s Chief Deputy Executive Commissioner.

So it appears Mr Taylor has a long experience in health care management within state government.  I could find nothing to indicate he has any direct experience or expertise in medicine, the actual provision of health care, or public health.  But also,

Since 2016, Chris has been leading a healthcare consulting firm serving clients in hospital operations and finance, long term services and supports, dental and oral health services, managed care and bio-health.

It appeared that since 2016, he worked for the Advanced Perspectives Group, which is, per its web-site,

a newly formed consortium of uniquely qualified consultants who have worked extensively in the health and human services arena both at the state and federal levels. Collectively, we have over 200 years of experience working in a variety of leadership positions in state and federal government. This experience brings our clients an important resource and an unparalleled understanding of agency operations and policy formulation-which enables us to help our clients create solutions that fit within the framework of Texas Health and Human agencies, their federal partners, and the policies that fall within those jurisdictions.

Advanced Perspectives Group, like other commercial health care consultancies, does not advertise its clients, but the biographies of individual principals suggest that clients include for-profit health care corporations.  Again, in his new position Mr Traylor may be able to influence how such corporations interact with Medicare and Medicaid. 

Discussion

So this round of revolving door transitions featured a top pharmaceutical company researcher going to a leadership position at the NIH, which was considered long ago as a producer or unbiased science; and one physician-manager and two pure managers going from big management consultancies to DHHS.  All these consultancies seem to have thriving businesses working with big commercial health care firms. So the Trump regime continues to stock top health care leadership positions with people from the commercial health care world.  These leadership positions will allow them to to control contracting with, policies that affect, and regulation of big health care corporations, including those they worked with or for, and their competitors, for that matter.

So, as I have said before, e.g., three and four months ago,

The revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

The ongoing parade of people transiting the revolving door from industry to the Trump regime once again suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have disproportionate influence on how the government works.  The country is increasingly being run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry. This has been termed crony capitalism. The latest cohort of revolving door transits suggests that regulatory capture is likely to become much worse in the near future.

Remember to ask: cui bono? Who benefits? The net results are that big health care corporations increasingly control the governmental regulatory and policy apparatus.  This will doubtless first benefit the top leadership and owners/ stockholders (when applicable) of these organizations, who are sometimes the same people, due to detriment of patients' and the public's health, the pocketbooks of tax-payers, and the values and ideals of health care professionals.  

 The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.
 

Are You Ready for Some (Political) Football? - the NFL, Concussion Research, the NIH, and the Revolving Door

Probably because it involved the favorite American sport, the controversy about the risk of concussions to professional National Football League (NFL) players, and how the NFL has handled the issue is very well known.  A recent article in Stat, however, suggested that one less well known aspect of the story overlaps some issues to concern to Health Care Renewal.

Allegations that a Prominent Physician and NFL Official Tried to Influence the NIH Grant Review Process

The article began,

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, president of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital [BWH] and one of the nation’s most prominent medical executives, was part of a National Football League effort to 'steer funding' for a landmark concussion study away from a group of respected brain researchers, according to a congressional committee report that was sharply critical of the league.

The report found that the NFL 'inappropriately attempted to influence' the National Institutes of Health’s [NIH] grant selection process.

Dr Nabel, in fact, not only runs the BWH, a renowned teaching hospital and major component of Partners Healthcare, but also serves as the "chief health and medical advisor" to the NFL. Anyone who has followed even a bit of the media coverage about the NFL and concussions affecting football players knows that the NFL could be negatively affected by any more research that associates playing professional football, concussions, and the adverse effects of concussions. 

The Stat article chronicled the intricate communications between Dr Nabel and the NIH as documented by a report from the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

 It cited a series of communications between NFL representatives, including Nabel, and officials of the NIH, and a foundation that accepts gifts from private donors to support NIH research. The discussions began after the NIH decided last year to award a $16 million grant to a research team led by Dr. Robert Stern of Boston University — but before the award was publicly announced.

The money for the grant was to come from a donation pledged by the NFL to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and league officials say they were concerned about aspects of Stern’s group and the proposed study.

Research by Stern’s team and BU colleagues has helped establish a link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, long-term brain damage that’s been observed in a growing number of athletes, including former NFL players, who suffered repeated head injuries.

The implication seems to be that this research group might be counted on to fearlessly pursue research even if the outcomes suggested that playing football might lead to adverse medical effects, which might not be so good for the NFL's interests.  So,

Nabel, who knows the NIH well from her 10 years working as a high-level manager in the agency, sent two emails to Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke [NINDS], according to the report. That’s the NIH branch that was awarding the grant.

In one email on June 23, 2015, she wrote, 'I am taking a neutral stance here,' while noting a concern about a potential conflict of interest: members of the NIH grant review panel had coauthored papers with two researchers that she had heard might be receiving the grant — Dr. Ann McKee and Dr. Robert Cantu of BU.

Later that day, she wrote Koroshetz that 'a Dr. Stern, who may also be with this group, has filed independent testimony in the NFL/Players Association settlement.'

Indeed, Stern was critical of how the settlement would be administered, pointing out flaws with the neuropsychological tests that the league proposed using to determine how to compensate injured players.

 Notwithstanding that Dr Nabel had an obvious conflict of interest herself: she worked for the NFL.  In any case,  

'I hope this group is able to approach their research in an unbiased manner,' Nabel’s email continued, the report says.

Nabel sent Stern’s testimony to Koroshetz, according to the report.

'My sole objective,' Nabel said in her statement, was to ask her former NIH colleagues to 'ensure there were no conflicts of interest among grant applicants.'

The NIH found no conflicts involving the grant review panel and stuck with its decision to award the grant to the Stern group. It ended up using internal funds, not the NFL money, to pay for the grant.

The NIH told STAT it agrees with the 'characterization of events in the report.'

An Affront to the Sanctity of the Grant Review Process?

Although Dr Nabel and the NFL asserted that they acted appropriately at all times, neither the committee staff nor one very prominent ethicist agreed,

The committee report said that Koroshetz disagreed ..., and said he was aware of no other instance where a donor raised objections to a grantee prior to the issuance of a notice of grant award.'

'The NFL’s characterization of the appropriateness of its actions suggests a lack of understanding of the importance of the NIH’s independent peer review process,' the committee report states.

Nabel’s spokeswoman said Koroshetz never told Nabel her actions were inappropriate. 'In fact, all of their interactions were very collegial and cordial,' she said.

I will interject that the question was not whether Dr Nabel was hostile or bullying, but was whether she tried to inappropriately influence the grant review process.  So also,

Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University, said Nabel’s actions, as described in the report, risk harming Nabel’s reputation and that of the Brigham. 'When she did anything to try to shape the selection of investigators or challenge the objectivity' of the grant selection process, he said, 'she had to know that that was 100 percent inappropriate, 100 percent unacceptable.'

Having served on numerous NIH and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) review committees (known as "study sections"),  let me add some context at this point.  Study section members must meet rigorous standards for freedom from conflicts of interest.  They also fiercely guard their independence.  The grant reviews they construct are supposed to be entirely about the scientific, clinical and public health merit of the proposals, and the scores they give proposals are the most important determinants of whether it gets funding.  Funding decisions are actually made by agency staff and advisory boards, but are supposed to depend only on the reviews and the general priority of the proposals' topics.  Nobody - I repeat, nobody - outside of this process is supposed to influence the funding decisions.

So the notion that big wigs from big outside organizations with vested interests in how a particular research project might turn out were communicating with top NIH officials about grant proposals, and that the officials allowed them to continue to communicate, and allowed even the chance they would be influenced by their communication strikes this old reviewer, to quote Dr Caplan, as "100 inappropriate, 100 percent unacceptable."

Did the Revolving Door Enable the Attempt to Influence NIH Grant Review?

Not directly discussed in the Stat article, however, was why Dr Koroshetz, director of NINDS, was willing to accept, if not agree with Dr Nabel's communications.  The article did note that Dr Nabel was a former "high-level manager" at the NIH.  In fact, according to her official Brigham and Womens' Hospital biography, Dr Nabel was director of the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute from 2005-2009.  She became CEO of the BWH in 2010.  Thus, she was a former top NIH leader who once held a rank commensurate with that held by Dr Koroshetz.

But wait, there is more.  Also according to her official BWH biography, Dr Nabel's husband is one  Gary Nabel, now the chief scientific officer at Sanofi.  Dr Gary Nabel, in turn, was Director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), another NIH institute, through 2012, but then according to Science, became chief scientific officer at Sanofi. So Dr Nabel's husband was also a high-ranking NIH leader, although apparently not as high-ranking as his spouse and the NINDS director with whom she communicated. 

Thus it appears that maybe Dr Nabel had outsized influence at the NIH and on the NINDS director because she was a former NHLBI director, and the spouse of a former high-ranking NIAID leader.  Her attempts to influence the NIH grant application process therefore appear to be a possible manifestation, albeit delayed, and partially at one spousal remove, of the revolving door pheonomenon.

We have noted that the revolving door is a species of conflict of interest. Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

  This case suggests how the revolving door may enable certain of those with private vested interests to have excess influence, way beyond that of ordinary citizens, on how the government works.

Worse, this case also suggests how it seems that the country is increasingly run by a cozy group of insiders with ties to both government and industry.  In fact, just a little more digging reveals that a key player in this case has even more ties to big private health care organizations.  According to ProPublica, in the last three months of 2014, Dr Elizabeth Nabel received $26,070 from Medtronic, mainly for food, travel and lodging, but which included $8572 for "promotional speaking/ other."  In 2015, she was appointed to the board of directors of Medtronic, despite not having previously owned any Medtronic stock, according to the company's 2015 proxy statement.  Also in 2015, she was appointed to the board of directors of Moderna Therapeutics.    Her husband, as noted above, now works as chief scientific officer for Sanofi.

So, as we have said before.... The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders and their cronies that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large.

Video addendum: the beginning of "League of Denial" from PBS Frontline



ADDENDUM (29 May, 2016) - This post was republished on the Naked Capitalism blog.

A Quiet Turn of the Revolving Door - Director of NIMH to Go Directly to Google Life Sciences

Amidst a lot of health care news, the job plans of Dr Thomas Insel, currently the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (part of the US National Institute of Health) made a very small splash.  The most comprehensive account was in the New York Times.

Dr. Thomas R. Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, announced on Tuesday that he planned to step down in November, ending his 13-year tenure at the helm of the world’s leading funder of behavioral-health research to join Google Life Sciences, which seeks to develop technologies for early detection and treatment of health problems.

As noted in the NYT article, Dr Insel had great influence over the direction of mental health research and policy,

Dr. Insel took over the N.I.M.H. in 2002 and steered funding toward the most severe mental disorders, like schizophrenia, and into basic biological studies, at the expense of psychosocial research, like new talk therapies. His critics — and there were plenty — often noted that biological psychiatry had contributed nothing useful yet to diagnosis or treatment, and that Dr. Insel’s commitment to basic science was a costly bet, with uncertain payoffs.

A Modern Healthcare article documented Dr Insel's specific organizational roles beyond his directorship that could have influenced research and policy,

Insel chaired the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, which is a federal advisory committee that coordinates autism research and services and was established by Congress.

Insel also co-chaired the Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, which supported the pioneering Human Connectome Project, a project to map the human brain, and the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies program, which aims to accelerate the development and application of innovative technologies to map brain circuits.

Insel also headed up the Common Fund efforts in Molecular Libraries, Single Cell Biology, and Genotype-Tissue Expression.

Comment

So Dr Insel clearly helped steer current US government mental health care research and policy towards its current course.  Now he is going directly, not with any sort of delay or waiting period, to a commercial firm poised to take advantage of the current direction of US mental health care research and policy.

Although more subtle than, say, a leader of a government regulatory agency departing for a position at a company regulated by that agency, this, in my humble opinion, appears to be an example of the revolving door.  Certainly it fits the broad 2011 Transparency International definition,

The term ‘revolving door’ refers to the movement of individuals between positions of public office and jobs in the private sector, in either direction.

Despite this, as far as I can tell, no one else so far has referred to this job transfer as an example of the revolving door.

Furthermore, as we noted here, the revolving door can be veiwed as a species of conflict of interest.  Government officials who can look forward to extremely lucrative employment in health care industry may be much more inclined to seem friendly to the industry while in office.  Government officials who just came from industry are likely to maintain their industry mindset and be mindful of their industry friends.

Worse, some experts have suggested that the revolving door is in fact corruption.  As we noted here, the experts from the distinguished European anti-corruption group U4 wrote,

The literature makes clear that the revolving door process is a source of valuable political connections for private firms. But it generates corruption risks and has strong distortionary effects on the economy, especially when this power is concentrated within a few firms.

We have discussed Dr Insel's approach to conflicts of interest before.  Note that Dr Bernard Carroll, posting on this blog, has written extensively about Dr Insel's apparently rather lax approach to conflict of interest issues while he was at NIH raised by the case of Dr Charles Nemeroff.  Look here,  here, here, and here.  Recapping these, I noted that Dr Insel later confessed that his statements about these issues "may be viewed as misleading."

Nonetheless, as far as I can tell, no one else so far has used the term conflict of interest in discussing Dr Insel's new job.  The anechoic effect continues.

As we have said endlessly, most recently here, the ongoing and increasing revolving door phenomenon clearly suggests excess coziness between industry and government, now to the extent that industry and government leaders of health care are becoming interchangeable.  This suggests that health care is increasingly run by this cozy ingroup, who very likely put their own interests ahead of those of patients and the public.

The continuing egregiousness of the revolving door in health care shows how health care leadership can play mutually beneficial games, regardless of the their effects on patients' and the public's health.  Once again, true health care reform would cut the ties between government and corporate leaders that have lead to government of, for and by corporate executives rather than the people at large

ADDENDUM (24 October, 2015) - This post was republished in OpEdNews.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Redux

Revised HHS Rules for Conflict of Interest Fall Short

This morning NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins announced revisions to the existing 1995 regulations on objectivity in research that is funded by the Public Health Service. The focus is on significant financial interests (SFI) and on financial conflicts of interest (FCOI). The regulations illustrate the 3-way dance involving academic institutions (the grantees), NIH (the grantor) and academic scientists (the investigators). Thanks to Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) and his investigator Paul Thacker, headlined revelations in recent years about unacceptable management of FCOI at places like Stanford (Alan Schatzberg), Emory (Charles Nemeroff) and Harvard (Joseph Biederman) forced these revisions of the NIH regulations.

The general initial reaction to the new rules has been critical – here and here, for instance. Many stakeholders had urged the NIH to require that institutions make the disclosed FCOI of their investigators available on a public website. Dr. Collins had intimated that we could expect to see this change, so there is consternation that it somehow became derailed by institutional lobbying in recent months. The stated concern was that institutions would feel burdened by the need to maintain these data bases. Instead, if citizens wish to inquire about FCOI involving PHS-derived research funding, they will need to write to the institution, which is obliged to respond within 5 days. That’s not exactly user friendly. POGO today made the smart suggestion that the data could easily be attached to information about awarded funds on the NIH RePORTER website, that already exists.

A second failing is that the revised regulations do not close the regulatory loophole through which Charles Nemeroff strolled when he moved from Emory to the University of Miami. We covered that incident several times on this blog last year. Though Nemeroff was under a 2-year sanction and banned from participating in NIH-funded research at Emory, his friend Thomas Insel, Director of NIMH, assured the dean of the medical school at Miami that Nemeroff was in good standing to apply for NIH funding when he moved from Emory. To underline the point, Insel displayed the bad judgment of appointing Nemeroff to 2 new NIMH review committees.

Do today’s revised regulations prevent a repeat of this administrative travesty? No, they don’t. There is some mention of ensuring oversight if a sanctioned investigator wishes to transfer a grant to a new institution, but nothing to prevent the Nemeroff-Insel dance from being repeated. Here is the relevant section of today’s announcement (page 89):

We did, however, agree with one respondent that it would be helpful to clarify, in the grants context in particular, that institutional sanctions against an Investigator can travel with the Investigator upon his or her transfer to another Institution. Specifically, we have revised 42 CFR 50.606, paragraph (a), as follows: “If the failure of an Investigator to comply with an Institution’s financial conflicts of interest policy or a financial conflict of interest management plan appears to have biased the design, conduct, or reporting of the PHS-funded research, the Institution shall promptly notify the PHS Awarding Component of the corrective action taken or to be taken. The PHS Awarding Component will consider the situation and, as necessary, take appropriate action, or refer the matter to the Institution for further action, which may include directions to the Institution on how to maintain appropriate objectivity in the PHS-funded research project. The PHS may, for example, require Institutions employing such an Investigator to enforce any applicable corrective actions prior to a PHS award or when the transfer of a PHS grant(s) involves such an Investigator.”

This revision is intended to reference the range of options for the PHS Awarding Component to consider, depending on the specific circumstances at issue. For example, PHS may decide to initiate government-wide suspension or debarment of the Investigator under 2 CFR Part 376; or to use enforcement measures under 45 CFR 74.62, e.g., perhaps to make the approval of a transfer contingent upon the former Institution’s disclosure of the corrective action- including the specific sanctions against the Investigator- to the new Institution; and/or to use special award conditions under 45 CFR 74.14, e.g., perhaps to make the new Institution agree to take the same or similar action against that Investigator or explain to the PHS Awarding Component in writing why such action was not taken and what alternative measures will be used to ensure compliance.

What’s wrong here? Everything is optional; everything is discretionary; everything is contextual – that is a formula for NIH and the academic institutions to just look the other way. And if a Nemeroff decides just to relocate without transferring a grant then he is free to start reapplying again right away. Miami would not be required to continue applying the Emory sanction banning him for 2 years from involvement in federal grants. The PHS Awarding Component (NIMH in this case) may or may not get involved, or it may pass the buck to the new institution. So what has changed? If it is left up to compromised federal bureaucrats like Thomas Insel, and institutional administrators like Pascal Goldschmidt at Miami, then nothing has changed. It's business as usual, folks.

Dr. Collins, you have not done what you set out to do. Too bad.

Retreat Back to Regulatory Capture: US FDA, NIH, Department of Health and Human Services All Back Off

After some brave words about transparency, integrity and all that, US government officials seem to be running back to the arms of the health care corporate CEOs.

Weakening FDA Conflict of Interest Rules

As reported by Reuters,

U.S. lawmakers likely will change the criteria for advisers reviewing new medicines next year because of complaints that the rules meant to prevent conflicts of interest make it harder to find real experts.

Congressional lawmakers may require the Food and Drug Administration to relax the rules that bar advisers from reviewing a drug if they have even indirect financial ties to related manufacturers, as part of an FDA funding bill.

This was not purely an initiative of legislators, but was egged on by a top FDA administrator

The agency often must delay panel meetings while it searches for experts without conflicts, lawmakers and FDA officials say. Top doctors are usually the ones drugmakers hire as speakers or consultants.

'We have had difficulty in recruiting highly qualified people. And we've had delays in having panels because of this,' Dr. Janet Woodcock, head of the FDA's drugs center, told a House of Representatives hearing earlier this month.

The result is that 23 percent of FDA advisory panels have vacancies, more than double the agency's stated goal, according to the FDA's quarterly report at the end of May.

The rationale was that those paid by drug and device companies are the most expert:

The FDA tightened guidelines in 2007 to minimize industry ties that could sway a panelist's view, partly inspired by the scandal with Merck's pain reliever Vioxx.

Ten of the 32 panelists advising the FDA on the drug consulted for drugmakers. Nine of the 10 recommended putting the drug back on the market after it was pulled in 2004 over concerns about heart risk.

The restrictions go too far, say lawmakers who want the FDA to approve more new medicines, in part because they promote American jobs.

'No longer can we deny experts simply because they have ties to industry,' said Georgia Representative Phil Gingrey during a House of Representative hearing on FDA funding last month. The committee's chairman, Fred Upton from Michigan, called the conflict of interest rules 'rigid and unrealistic.'

Industry executives, who want the FDA to speed drug approvals, also support relaxing the rules. Biogen Idec CEO George Scangos said the guidelines 'exclude a lot of people who would be the best qualified.'

Of course, the drug and device companies have been touting their paid "key opinion leaders" as the best and the brightest for a long time. There is plenty of evidence, however, that they are mainly those whom those companies find the most compliant, and in many cases, those who are willing to be stealth marketers on those companies' payrolls. (See this post about those who recruit KOLs regarding them as salesmen, and more here.)  "Key opinion leaders" supported by commercial grant funding may seem like experts to academic medical institutions' leadership who now value outside funding more than teaching and research excellence (see this post).

Furthermore, as reported by Politco, the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, chastised FDA leadership for exaggerating the difficulty of finding unconflicted experts, concluding in their letter to the FDA Commissioner, "to gain the public trust, we must ensure that the FDA relies on the best available information for its policies, rather than personal opinions and biases."

So far, government officials seem to be more worried about the opinions of corporate leaders than the public trust.

Weakening NIH Conflict of Interest

As discussed in Nature,

Francis Collins hailed it as a 'new era of clarity and transparency in the management of financial conflicts of interest' (S. J. Rockey and F. S. Collins J. Am. Med. Assoc. 303, 2400–2402; 2010). But the director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) may have spoken too soon when he described a new rule, proposed last year, that would require universities and medical schools to publicly disclose online any financial arrangements that they believe could unduly influence the work of their NIH-funded researchers.

Nature has learned that a cornerstone of that transparency drive — a series of publicly accessible websites detailing such financial conflicts — has now been dropped.

In more detail,

The NIH's parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), proposed the new rule in May 2010, after congressional and media investigations revealed that prominent NIH grant recipients had failed to tell their universities or medical schools about lucrative payments from companies that may have influenced their government-funded research. The DHHS called the proposed websites 'an important and significant new requirement to … underscore our commitment to fostering transparency, accountability, and public trust'. Under the proposal, institutions with NIH-funded researchers would determine, grant by grant, if any financial conflicts existed for senior scientists on the grant. For example, these would include receiving consultancy fees, or holding shares in a company, 'that could directly and significantly affect the design, conduct, or reporting' of the research. The institutions would post the details online, where they would stay for at least five years.

But of course the medical schools decided that it would just be too much trouble to do all this:

'The websites don't appear out of nowhere,' says Heather Pierce, senior director of science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington DC. They would 'require employees to not only create the website but to pull the information, review it, and make sure it is up to date and accurate'.

That is not the only objection from the powerful academic lobbies. During the public comment period last summer, the Association of American Universities and the AAMC submitted a joint statement saying: 'There are serious and reasonable concerns among our members that the Web posting will be of little practical value to the public and, without context for the information, could lead to confusion rather than clarity regarding financial conflicts of interest and how they are managed.'

Given how academic medical institutions have expanded their administrations and bureaucracy, the enormous amounts they spend on management, and the huge compensation they give their executives, and further given how much of their revenues come from government sources (Medicare, Medicaid money for patient care, Veterans Administration money supporting many faculty members, Medicare money funding graduate medical education, and NIH and other government research grants), the notion that getting a few staffers to process disclosures would be administratively or financially burdensome is just laughable.

At least Iowa's Republican Senator Charles Grassley, seemingly one of the last politicians in Washington who cares about the integrity of government programs and spending, is upset. As reported again by Nature,

The US Senate's leading advocate for government transparency wrote today to the White House's budget office, demanding that it protect a proposed rule that would obligate universities to post their publicly-funded biomedical researchers' financial conflicts on a publicly accessible website.

'The public's business should be public... I urge OMB to follow through and approve a rule that includes a publicly available website,' Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa ..., wrote in in this letter to Jacob Lew, the director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Furthermore, he wrote:

I am troubled that taxpayers cannot learn about the outside income of the researchers whom the taxpayers are funding, and this flies in the face of President Obama's call for more transparency in the government.

We will see if his protest does any good, but again it appears that government officials are more worried about the revenues of big health care organizations than the needs of the public.

Retreating from Threats to Disbar Forest Laboratories CEO

We previously posted about how the US Department of Health and Human Services threatened to disbar the CEO of Forrest Laboratories from dealings with the government after his company pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and misbranding, and paid a $313 million fine.

Now, per Alicia Mundy writing for the Wall Street Journal, things have changed:

The U.S. government dropped efforts to force the resignation of a prominent pharmaceutical-company chief executive, reversing course after protests from the company and major business groups.

The about-face on Forest Laboratories's longtime leader, Howard Solomon, represents a significant retreat by the Department of Health and Human Services, which has said it wants to step up punishments against drug-company executives when wrongdoing happens on their watch.

Forest agreed last year to plead guilty to misdemeanors involving marketing of its drugs including the antidepressant Celexa, and it paid $313 million to resolve the matter.

Mr. Solomon wasn't personally accused of any wrongdoing. Nonetheless, the government notified him in April that it was considering excluding him from jobs at health-care companies that sell to the U.S. government. It invoked a little-used clause in the Social Security Act that allows such an action against corporate leaders of companies found guilty of criminal misconduct, even if the leaders had no knowledge of the misconduct.

The exclusion move would have effectively forced Forest to remove Mr. Solomon from office, because Forest and other drug companies rely on business from U.S. government agencies such as Medicare and the Veterans Administration.

In a letter to Mr. Solomon on Friday, the office of the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services said, 'Based on a review of information in our file, and consideration of the information your attorneys provided to us both in writing and in an in-person meeting, we have decided to close this case.'

We have discussed - some might say endlessly - how despite numerous publicly reported cases of wrongdoing by health care organizations, hardly any individual who authorized, directed or implemented the bad behavior has ever faced any negative consequences. There have been recent fulminations by some government officials that this is going to change. The case of the Forest Laboratories CEO appeared to be an example of such change, but no more.

The Wall Street Journal went on to discuss why the government may have changed course:

The government's retreat came after a barrage of complaints from Forest and business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry's leading trade group.

In July, Forest spent $80,000 to hire former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux to lobby the government regarding exclusion, according to Senate records. Mr. Breaux didn't return a call requesting comment. Forest said earlier that it was just trying to make its case that this was a highly unusual action by the U.S. government.

Of course it was unusual. That is the whole problem.

In any case, it looked like the government was much more concerned about the coddling of corporate CEOs and their lobbyists' and cronies' opinions than about deterring bad behavior by large health care organizations.

Summary

After a bit of blustering by the current US administration about transparency and integrity it appears to be back to business as usual in the US capital. Over the last 20 years, government has increasingly answered to corporate CEOs instead of "we, the people." Protecting patients' and the public's health has given way to protecting the financial health of large health care organizations, and the compensation of rich CEOs. Federalism is giving way to corporatism. As long as this continues, expect our health care system to continue its slow collapse. Eventually, expect the CEOs to get in their private jets and escape while the rest of us picks up the pieces.

Until we dispel the fog of corporatism that has spread over the government that was once supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people, expect no real health care reform, and expect continuing rising costs, declining access, and worsening patient care. Obviously, true health care reform would start with the government and its officials putting patients' and the public's health first, way ahead of the financial comfort of corporate CEOs.

See also comments by Alison Bass.