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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost AT gilanet.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] The National Institutes of Health: Public Servant or Private Marketer?
  • Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 18:05:40 -0700


The National Institutes of Health: Public Servant or Private Marketer?
whole article at
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-nih22dec22,1,2079044.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

Doctors have long relied on the NIH to set medical standards. But with its
researchers accepting fees and stock from drug companies, will that change?
A continuing examination by The Times shows an unabashed mingling of
science and commerce.

December 22, 2004
By David Willman, Times Staff Writer

For 15 million Americans, it is a daily ritual: gulping down a pill to
reduce cholesterol.

They do it because their doctors tell them to. Their doctors, in turn, rely
on recommendations from the National Institutes of Health and its
scientists, such as Dr. H. Bryan Brewer Jr.

Brewer, as a leader at the NIH, was part of a team that gave the nation new
cholesterol guidelines that were expected to prompt millions more people to
take the daily pill. He also has written favorably of a specific brand of
cholesterol medication, Crestor, which recently proved controversial.

What doctors were not told for years is this: While making recommendations
in the name of the NIH, Brewer was working for the companies that sell the
drugs. Government and company records show that from 2001 to 2003, he
accepted about $114,000 in consulting fees from four companies making or
developing cholesterol medications, including $31,000 from the maker of
Crestor.







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