Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the previous day's investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor.
Watching the Watchdogs
Hearing: "Watching the Watchers: The Need for Systemic Reforms and Independence of the State Department Inspector General"
House Foreign Affairs Committee
POGO's Jake Wiens will be tweeting the hearing, follow @POGOBlog starting at 10 am
Watchdogs caught nuzzling and wagging tails; auditor sales pitches exposed
David S. Hilzenrath, Political Economy
Oil Spill
"Safety" Bonuses for Deepwater Horizon Rig Owner?
Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones
U.S. says no deal with BP as it seeks to drill again
Mica Rosenberg and Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters
Financial Oversight
Who's Too Big To Fail?
Jacob Goldstein, Planet Money
Fed Help Kept Banks Afloat, Until It Didn’t
Binyamin Appelbaum and Jo Craven McGinty, New York Times
Department of Defense
Darpa: We Have Conflicts of Interest All the Time
Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman, Danger Room
Probe: No ‘causal relation’ between Army commander, Afghan killings
Craig Whitlock, Washington Post
Should Canada reconsider its F-35 purchase?
Winslow Wheeler, Embassy
In Case You Missed It
When the New York Times raised ethical concerns about the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) novel collaboration with a Big Pharma funded medical communications company to write a medical textbook, one would think the organization would go all out to rectify the situation. If you’re a creature of Washington, you know the drill:
First, deny culpability.
Second, apologize for what you didn’t do.
Third, announce new ethics rules, so that what didn’t happen will never happen again.
That’s typically how it works. But at APA and their publishing house, the APPI, brains seem to function differently from the rest of us.
Observing the APA try to bat away allegations of ghostwriting is like watching a silent slapstick where an actor trips on his own shoe laces and tries valiantly to maintain footing, before tumbling down a nearby flight of stairs, and dropping bottom first into an unfortunately positioned dirty mop bucket.
Comedy genius.
Continue reading "American Psychiatric Association Spooked about Ghostwriting" »
By Paul D. Thacker
POGO noted last week that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is considering new rules to address the issue of corporate ghostwriting in medical literature.
Although NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins told POGO that his agency is "sending a clear message to institutions and investigators alike that we support the principles of transparency and accountability in research," a question remains. Do these rules go far enough?
As I explained to Nature, Dr. Collins continues to miss some subtleties regarding corporate-funded ghostwriting firms, like STI, and how they corrupt the medical literature.
Dr. Collins said that proposed NIH regs on conflicts of interest will require academics to disclose "paid authorship" when filing conflict of interest forms.
Continue reading "NIH Rules Miss Subtleties of Corporate Influence on Medical Research" »
By Paul D. Thacker
Late last year, POGO sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) apprising them of four examples of academics who used the ghostwriting firm Scientific Therapeutics Information to publish studies, letters, and a book. POGO’s letter was covered by The New York Times, and Nature published an editorial excoriating the NIH for supporting researchers who fail to reveal their ties to industry.
Last week, NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins wrote to POGO explaining his agency’s take on financial conflicts of interest and ghostwriting in academia. Presidents and Deans of America’s medical schools take note: Dr. Collins wrote that the NIH “does not condone the practice of ghostwriting.” In fact, ghostwriting is banned at the NIH, and if federal funds are involved, Dr. Collins stated that ghostwriting could be referred to the Office of Research Integrity for an investigation as “a case of plagiarism.”
Dr. Collins also wrote that the NIH is considering ways to deal with ghostwriting in its newly proposed revision to rules on conflicts of interest in extramural funding:
Because of its potential to create conflicts-of-interest that could bias or otherwise inappropriately influence NIH-supported research, “paid authorship” was specifically included in the proposed revisions to the regulations. By including “paid authorship” in the definition of “Significant Financial Interest” in the proposed rule, the NIH is sending a clear message to institutions and investigators alike that we support the principles of transparency and accountability in research and that institutions and investigators engaging in such activity may be subject to more rigorous disclosure and reporting.
People. Pay attention. Time to give up the ghosts.
Read the NIH’s response to POGO’s letter.
Paul Thacker is a POGO Investigator.
Image by Flickr user LRobertas, used under Creative Commons License
Related:
Give up the ghosts [Nature]
Publishing Classified Info: A Review of Relevant Statutes by Steve Aftergood [Secrecy News]
Viewpoint: Happy Birthday, Open Government Directive by Carolyn Lukensmeyer and Patrice McDermott [Government Executive]
House Democrats Seek Boost In Regulator Funding by Jessica Holzer and Sarah N. Lynch [Dow Jones]
On Not Letting BP Investigators Do Their Job by Kate Sheppard [Mother Jones]
Where Are the Financial Crisis Prosecutions? by Jesse Eisinger [ProPublica]
Republican Targets Use of Costly Medical Devices by Alicia Mundy [The Wall Street Journal]
Playing defense – but at a price? by Jen DiMascio [Politico]
Cheat Sheet: Where the Fed’s Trillions Went by Marian Wang [ProPublica]
Play Games! Help End Defense Procurement Fraud by Sandra Erwin [National Defense Magazine]
Revised on December 22, 2010. Additional information.
The New York Times ran a story yesterday (and subsequent correction) about a POGO investigation which uncovered millions of dollars that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been giving to medical researchers who use ghostwriters funded by the pharmaceutical industry.
POGO sent the NIH four examples of this behavior, but the Times decided to focus on the case of Drs. Charles Nemeroff and Alan Schatzberg, who signed their names to a handbook for doctors that had entire portions written by the marketing firm Scientific Therapeutics Information (STI). The whole thing was paid for by pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which was using STI to push sales of the antidepressant Paxil.
When the book was published, the authors acknowledged the “editorial assistance” of the marketing firm, and thanked GSK for an “unrestricted educational grant.”
Documents acquired by POGO provide a dramatically different narrative.
Quotable: Secretary Gates on WikiLeaks by Dave Maxwell [Small Wars Journal]
'Don't Write if You Can Talk...': The latest from WikiLeaks by Stephen M. Walt [Foreign Policy]
A Ghostwritten Psychiatric Book Hints at a Much Larger Problem by Robert Whitaker [Psychology Today]
Professor, APA dispute ghostwriting allegation by Elizabeth Titus [Stanford Daily]
SEC showed leniency to bailed-out Bank of America, watchdog report say by Zachary A. Goldfarb [The Washington Post]
Marines’ Instant Gunship Blasts Taliban, Pentagon Bureaucracy by David Axe [Danger Room]
Government Contractor Seeks Injunction Against DOD, U.S. Transportation Command by Jeff Jeffrey [The BLT: The Blog of the Legal Times]
Judge Denies Government Request for Expert Names in Drake Case by Lindsay Bigda [The Whistleblogger]
Offshore drilling regulation overhaul appears out of reach by Bruce Alpert [Times-Picayune]
Special report: How BP's oil spill costs could double by Tom Bergin [Reuters]
Fed to Name Recipients of $3.3 Trillion in Aid During Crisis by Scott Lanman and Craig Torres [Bloomberg]
On
Finance Bill, Lobbying Shifts to Regulations by Binyamin Appelbaum [The
New York Times]
Election clock ticks for campaign finance bill facing a
crowded Senate agenda by Russell Berman [The Hill]
Major Defense Acquisition Shakeup Coming by Greg
Grant [Defense Tech]
9 Years In, U.S. Finally Tries to Get a Grip on Warzone
Contractors by Spencer Ackerman [Danger Room]
States Weigh Big Claims Against BP by Neil King
Jr., Dionne Searcey and Vanesssa O'Connell
How Congress Is Setting Up The SEC to Fail - - Again by Ben Popper [BNET]
Procurement Pressures by Robert Brodsky and Elizabeth Newell [Government Executive]
Cassano, Goldman Sachs's Cohn to Testify to Crisis Commission by Andrew Frye and Sarah Frier [Bloomberg]
Grassley Urges NIH To Focus On Ghostwriting by Ed Silverman [Pharmalot]
Classification Actions May Get “External” Review by Steven Aftergood [Secrecy News]
Opening the Window on Foreign Lobbying [ProPublica]
Oil Industry Backs Protests of Emissions Bill [The New York Times]
QDR: It’s Over, Barring Surprises [DoD Buzz]
Defense contractors brace for life without supplemental bills [Government Executive]
Two More Ethics Waivers [The Fine Print]
Inside Obama Administration, a Tug of War Over Nuclear Warheads [Global Security Newswire]
Talking With Earl Devaney, Stimulus Watchdog [ProPublica]
Obama aims to boost stimulus contracting with small firms [Federal Times]
TARP'd Banks Back Getting Back in the Lending Game? [The Fine Print]
Fannie Mae's Tough Times Continue [BailoutSleuth]
Senator Moves to Block Medical Ghostwriting [The New York Times]
HHS says grassroots efforts to fight Medicare fraud have paid off [Government Executive]