Chuck Grassley: “I started looking at the financial relationships between physicians and drug companies several years ago. I first began…”

“I started looking at the financial relationships between physicians and drug companies several years ago. I first began this inquiry by examining payments to individuals who served on FDA's Advisory Boards. More recently, I began looking at payments from drug companies to professors at our nation's medical schools and more specifically at the payments from Astra Zeneca to a professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. I then moved on to look at several psychiatrists at Harvard and Mass General Hospital. These physicians are some of the top psychiatrists in the country, and their research is some of the most important in the field. They have also taken millions of dollars from the drug companies and failed to report those payments accurately to Harvard and Mass General. For instance, in 2000 the National Institutes of Health awarded one Harvard physician a grant to study atomoxetine in children. At that time, this physician disclosed that he received less than $10,000 in payments from Eli Lilly which makes Straterra, a brand name of atomoxetine. But Eli Lilly reported that it paid this same physician more than $14,000 for advisory services that year--a difference of at least $4,000. I would now like to report what I have found out about another researcher--Dr. Alan Schatzberg at Stanford. In the late nineties, Dr. Schatzberg helped to start a company called Corcept Therapeutics--Dr. Schatzberg is a copatent owner on a drug developed by Corcept.”