Investigations: Universities May Lose Grants Over Secretive Pharma Ties

The U.S. Senate finance committee and the National Institutes of Health are threatening to yank grants from universities that fail to disclose ties to pharmaceutical companies, according to this Wall Street Journal story (available by subscription only). It's the latest in a growing chorus of concern about secretive ties between the medical community and drug marketing reps. See more in this story I just did for Vancouver's Georgia Straight weekly, titled The Pill Pushers, as well as this follow-up story on how pharmacies sell doctors' prescription info to pharma-research firms, plus this one on the reaction from British Columbia health minister George Abbott and newly elected Canadian Medical Association president Robert Ouellet.