E-Drug: Conflicts of interest between Pharma and Foundations
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Dear colleagues
The following is from Ed Silverman's Pharmalot blog (copied as fair use)
on the recent PLoS Medicine article investigating conflict on interest
between big donor foundations e.g. Gates, and the pharmaceutical industry.
PLoS URL:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001020
Regards
Douglas
Douglas Ball
ResultsinHealth, Netherlands
douglasball [AT] yahoo.co.uk
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Foundations, Conflicts Of Interest And Drugmakers
<http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/04/foundations-conflicts-of-interest-and-drugmakers/>
By Ed Silverman // April 13th, 2011
Major philanthropic foundations, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foudation, regularly make the news with their donations and initiatives
aimed at improving global health. But there is an aspect to their
efforts that may be overlooked - such organizations can have links with
drugmakers that could constitute a conflict of interest, according to an
analysis published in PLoS Medicine.
The researchers examined the five largest US private and/or family
foundations that focus considerably on global health - besides the Gates
Foundation, the list included the Ford Foundation; W K Kellogg
Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, which is a philanthropic outgrowth of a Johnson & Johnson
founder. They analyzed publicly available endowment disclosures with the
US Internal Revenue Service and stock holdings from the US Securities
and Exchange Commission. They also examined potential conflicts of
interest of individual foundation employees.
What did they find? In some instances, foundation board members sat on
the boards of corporations that also may benefit from foundation grants.
The opposite was also found to be true - foundation grants are sometimes
associated with companies that are represented on a foundation board and
are among its investments and partnerships (read the PLoS analysis here
<http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001020#pmed.1001020-Robert1>\).
Take the Gates Foundation. Several members of its management committee,
leadership teams, affiliates, and major funders are currently or were
previously members of the boards or executive branches of several major
drugmakers, including Merck and Novartis (see the commercial network of
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation here
<http://mapper.nndb.com/start/?map=12051> and here
<http://mapper.nndb.com/maps/087/000012051/>\).
A related example: In 2005, the Gates Foundation announced a $107.6
million grant to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) to extend a
public-private partnership between MVI and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals
to develop the drugmakerâs malaria vaccine for children in Africa. Three
months later, the Gates Foundation hired Tachi Yamada as executive
director of its Global Health program. Until then, he chaired Glaxo R&D.
Meanwhile, there are stock holdings. The Gates Foundation holdings are
invested in Berkshire Hathaway, which the researchers write has
significant ownership in GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis Johnson &
Johnson. And the Gates Foundation held stock in Merck at a time when it
developed partnerships with the African Comprehensive AIDS and Malaria
Partnership and the Merck Company Foundation to test Merck products.
Also, the researchers noted the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation played a
leading role in promoting anti-tobacco products and maintains Smoking
Cessation Leadership Centers and programs, but owns Johnson & Johnson
stock, a leading manufacturer of cessation products. They also pointed
out some board members have been represented on both the foundationâs
and the companyâs boards. *UPDATE*: The share of Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation assets comprised of J&J stock is currently $803 million, or
just under 9 percent of total assets of $8.8 billion, a spokesman writes
us, adding that there are no current overlapping board members.
For a definition of a conflict, they relied on the World Health
Organization, which notes a conflict of interest 'can occur when a
partner's ability to exercise judgment in one role is impaired by his or
her obligations in another role or by the existence of competing
interests. A conflict of interest may exist even if no unethical or
improper act results from it. It can create an appearance of impropriety
that can undermine confidence in the individual, his/her constituency or
organization. Both actual and perceived conflicts of interest can
undermine the reputation and work of the Partnership.'
The authors noted that 'a private foundation clearly has the legal right
to spend money however it wishes within the limits of the law' yet, in an
environment where private foundations influence the future direction of,
for example, what programs will be introduced into a foreign community,
in a manner that does not necessarily involve directorship or voting
from the community- members themselves, it is reasonable to subject the
decision-making processes of these entities to public debate, especially
if these funds were to have otherwise been collected for public
redistribution through federal taxation'.
'While private foundations adopt standard disclosure protocols for
employees to mitigate potential conflicts of interests, these do not
always apply to the overall endowment investments of the foundations or
to board membership appointments,' they conclude. 'The extent and range
of relationships between tax-exempt foundations and for-profit
corporations suggest that transparency or grant-making recusal of
employees alone may not be preventing potential conflicts of interests
between global health programs and their financing.'