Doc Quits Hospital Over Conflict Of Interest Policy
11 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // January 25th, 2010 // 8:03 am
In an effort to limit industry influence, Partners HealthCare, which owns Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals in Boston, recently imposed a new conflict of interest policy (background here and here). Now, one doc is quitting.
Lawrence DuBuske, 55, an allergy and asthma specialist and a Harvard Medical School instructor, will resign from Brigham and Women’s Hospital at month’s end, The Boston Globe reports, which notes he was Glaxo’s highest-paid speaker during a three-month period last year, making $99,375 for giving 40 talks to other docs last April, May, and June (see here).
He spoke in Boston, Buenos Aires, Poland, and Russia, six other drugmakers also use him as a speaker, and he is a consultant for a half-dozen more, the paper adds, although there was no info on how much he was paid for teaching continuing medical education courses. DuBuske, who declined to speak to the paper, is a national speaker for Glaxo, earning about $2,500 per talk. The drugmaker, by the way, picks the topic and content of the talks in the speakers bureau program.
’’There are physicians earning so much money (from drug makers) that they would give up their jobs,’’ Steve Nissen, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, tells The Globe. “It’s a shocking story. Normally, you’d give up the (company) honoraria.’’ Will DuBuske retain his value as a speaker, though?
A Glaxo spokeswoman tells the paper she’s uncertain DuBuske will remain in demand to the same degree without the prestige conferred by the Brigham and Harvard job titles.
Photo courtesy of Jerome Kessirer
where is my handout
Lawrence- see ya
Anonymous Patient
Sounds like this doctor was already working for big Pharma, maybe that will be his next gig….
Also sounds like patients were being used as a means to an end and not the primary concern for this doctor. It’s a real business, accrue a lot of patients into your business, keep a fair number on one drug or the other, just enough to make you look appealing to industry…then voila! travel the world at the industry expense…
By Lawrence, pretty sure your patients won’t miss you…But don’t worry, who ever takes over from you will be happy to fill your shoes with pharma. Same game, different players……
firebird
Let’s say 12 weeks to the quarter,then that means he has to average more than 3 talks per week. Unless this guy sees patients in the corridors of Logan, something seems wrong with this number
patrons99
Does anyone think for even a minute that most asthma/allergy CME and guidelines are not completely biased in favor of pharma? What happened to honor, conscience, and integrity? Provides yet another demonstration of my theory that many (if not most) KOLs (academic pharma-shills) cannot survive without accepting “blood money” from pharma. It’s not all downside, however. While DuBuske may have lost his sinecure, he could still make it into the Hall of Shame.
pharmavet
Agree with Patrons. True confessions here. Many years ago, without naming companies or drugs, my company was a major contributor to AACE (American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists). As a reward for our support, they actually allowed us to write certain clinical practice guidelines, which naturally resulted in boosted sales of our drugs. I was flabbergasted at the leeway they gave us. In this case the chickens have finally come home to roost, and the COI’S exposed. Hopefully a new day will dawn.
Insider
To those of you who call Dr. DuBuske a drug pusher, take a look at the GSK report (http://gsk-us.com/docs-pdf/responsibility/hcp-fee-disclosure-2q2009.pdf) only to learn that Dr. Joshua Boyce, Co-Director of the Division of Rheumatology, Immunology, and Allergy at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston is also on that same list.
If Dr. DuBuske has done “lucrative speaking and consulting gigs for Glaxo” as you say, than what is Dr. Boyce doing. Certainly not resigning from BWH!
Here is an idea for your next article…
“Doctor does not quit Brigham and speaks for pay”.
Did you overlook that one?
Roj TV
nice topic
thank you
Anne PME
If he loses prestige here in the US, maybe he can move to Asia and give talks there.
Anne
pharmavet
WAY more money can be made outside of Pharma now that universities have clamped down. When I was a post-doctoral fellow, we hardly ever saw our Dept Head. I found out along the way that he was being paid a king’s ransom by one Pharma company to promote a new therapy, including an appearance on a popular talk show that netted him five figures. He easily doubled his university salary, and this was inn the 1980’s, before the really big bucks started pouring in.
pharmavet
Sorry, meant to say that way more money can be made otside of UNIVERSITIES…
Pharma Conduct Guy
I have performed an analysis of GSKs payments, which you can read about and download the data in Excel format at the following link: http://blog.pharmaconduct.org/2010/01/analysis-of-gsks-speaker-and-consulting.html?src=PharmalotComments20100127