NEWS - Doctor accused of leak to drug maker

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Doctor Accused of Leak to Drug Maker

The New York Times

By STEPHANIE SAUL

Published: January 31, 2008

A leading member of the Senate said Wednesday that a prominent

diabetes expert had leaked an unpublished and confidential medical

journal article to GlaxoKline last year, tipping the company to

the imminent publication of safety questions involving the company's

diabetes drug Avandia.

The expert, Dr. M. Haffner of the University of Texas Health

Science Center in San , faxed the article to the drug maker

after agreeing to read it as part of the peer-review process for The

New England Journal of Medicine, according to a statement Wednesday by

Senator E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa.

" The most troubling aspect of this situation is that the integrity of

another aspect of the scientific process is called into question —

scientific peer review, " Mr. Grassley's statement said. The

peer-review process, he said, is meant to ensure " that other

scientists will judge a study's quality before it is made public. "

Mr. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee and a

longtime critic of business dealings between doctors and drug

companies, also released a copy of a letter he sent to GlaxoKline

in which he asked what action the company took after receiving the

letter.

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Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/business/31censure.html?ref=business

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Not an MD