Getting back on the horse

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.

OK. I just hope starting with a Bible reading made this commentary harder to attack.

People say you should get straight back onto horses that throw you, and late last year I was thrown by a hobby horse.

I discussed pharmaceutical marketing in this forum and, before you could say "academic freedom", Gardasil's manufacturer pounced upon me. CSL sent a firmly-worded complaint to my university's Vice Chancellor. He was told that I'd been unprofessional, incorrect and inappropriate.

The university decreed that the drug company required my apology. Apparently I'd misled listeners that the views I'd expressed were my university's and not my own.

Several journalists disagreed. The university initially dismissed public criticism as a storm in a teacup before falling silent, perhaps illustrating that putting both feet in your mouth leaves you with no leg to stand on.

To cut a long story short, I was eventually told an apology wasn't needed. This was a relief because "I apologise for your stupidity" wasn't even accurate, let alone acceptable.

I've survived my tussle with a university and a drug company.

But not every doctor is so lucky, and not every university is like mine.

Nancy Olivieri is a physician and researcher who clashed with a drug company, her hospital and her university. Her situation partly inspired the novel and subsequent movie The Constant Gardener.

Olivieri became concerned about a drug's side effects. The company sponsoring her research warned her not to tell her patients or publish her findings.

But she did so, and was subsequently dismissed from her hospital and university positions. A proposed $55 million grant from the drug company to the university was widely thought to be a factor.

After several inquiries, multiple dismissals and reinstatements, and years of legal wrangling, Olivieri was vindicated. She says that universities should serve the public interest, even when it means standing up to powerful corporations who provide desirable funding.

David Healy also had a dispute with a Canadian university. Healy had an offer of a professorship rescinded, allegedly because he gave a lecture saying suicide was a neglected side effect of Prozac.

Prozac's manufacturer happened to be a major funder of the university centre where Healy had been offered a position. Healy was told by the centre's physician-in-chief that the lecture had solidified a view that he was unsuitable for the job.

Healy sued for millions. An eventual undisclosed out-of-court settlement included a visiting professorship for him. Healy believes that society and the pharmaceutical industry need a new contract that includes access to the raw data.

Aubrey Blumsohn, a UK pathologist, would agree.

He's a former senior lecturer at a UK University who worked on a crucial double blind trial of an osteoporosis drug. The drug's potential market was worth billions.

After completion of the trial, its manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, organised a conference paper for Blumsohn to present.

Things got nasty when Blumsohn insisted on being given access to the raw data. He badgered the drug company for over a year, and even engaged a lawyer to try to get the figures.

Unfortunately his university seemed to place greater priority on keeping a commercial partner happy than on supporting an intrepid lecturer's search for scientific truth. Blumsohn was eventually suspended for briefing journalists.

He was later offered about $300,000 by the university if he would leave his position without making derogatory comments. He turned the offer down but did eventually depart from academia, wounded by the experience.

After prolonged legal activity, the elusive data came to light.

Independent analysis is widely reported to have shown certain abstracts and papers did not fully reflect the data.

The Journal of Bone and Mineral Research was criticised but an eventual editorial in November 2007 astutely commented that "the interests of science and industry are not always congruent" and that "the ultimate protection to science is open discussion".

The Salvation Army's founder, William Booth, apparently once suggested that there's no such thing as tainted money, there just t'aint enough.

What might be true for a charity providing care for the homeless, however, is not necessarily true for a university providing intellectual insights for the community.

Australia's universities have one of the highest levels of private funding in the world and it's inevitable that corporate investors seek favourable research and publicity.

Our universities need support to fulfil their responsibility for advancing human knowledge; and scrutiny to ensure they don't degenerate into mouthpieces for their commercial sponsors.