http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7313/591/a
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News
University accused of violating academic freedom to safeguard funding from
drug companies
Owen Dyer
An international group of renowned scientists has accused Canada's largest
university of violating academic freedom for fear of losing research
funds from drug companies when it revoked a job offer to an
outspoken British psychiatrist.
A letter to the University of Toronto signed by 27 leading scientists,
including two Nobel laureates of medicine, said the decision to
rescind a professorship offered to Dr David Healy, who currently
works at the University of Wales at Bangor, has "besmirched"
the name of the University of Toronto and "poisoned the
reputation" of its Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
Dr Arvid Carlsson, this year's winner of the Nobel prize in medicine, and Dr
Julius Axelrod, the 1970 winner, were among those who branded
the affair "an affront to the standards of free speech and
academic freedom."
Dr Healy was offered the post of director of the mood and anxiety disorders
clinic at the centre after he was chosen by a search committee. He
went to Toronto in November 2000 to discuss moving arrangements
and to speak at a psychopharmacology seminar before some of his
future colleagues. According to the executive director of the centre,
Dr Paul Garfinkel, two of the points he made upset several of those
colleagues: that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as
fluoxetine (Prozac) could lead to anxiety and suicidal thoughts; and
that psychiatry, spurred on by the drugs industry, was overtreating
people.
"Several of the people he would have been working with were deeply
shocked by the extreme nature of his views, and by his poor
methodology and lack of supporting evidence," Dr Garfinkel told
the BMJ. "It was felt that, in a clinical setting, it would be
difficult for him to effectively lead a programme where he could not
rely on the respect of his colleagues."
Academics have been speculating that the real reason for the withdrawal of
the job offer might be the fear that the centre's major
pharmaceutical sponsors, which include Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of
fluoxetine, would pull out their research dollars if the centre hired
someone who expressed negative views about their products. The
clinic that Dr Healy was to run drew an unusually high proportion of
its research budget
52% last yearfrom pharmaceutical companies,
and Eli Lilly was one of the major contributors. The university denies
that this was a factor.
Dr Healy, who is considering legal action for breach of contract, said his
talk was well received by the audience, but that it upset the man
who would be his direct superior at the centre, Dr David Goldblum.
"When I saw him afterwards, he looked like a man about to have
a stroke."
Dr Healy is an expert witness for plaintiffs in a number of lawsuits over
murders and suicides allegedly provoked by taking selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors. In one case a Wyoming jury awarded
$6.4m (£4.6m) last June to the family of Donald Schell, who killed
several members of his family and then himself while taking
GlaxoSmithKline's paroxetine (Seroxat).
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Rapid Response responses to
this article:
Read all Rapid Response
responses
The rescinded offer to Healy: More complex a matter
than it first looks?
James C. Coyne, Professor , Department
of Psychiatry
bmj.com, 16 Sep 2001 [Response]
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