Attempting to Examine the Relationships Between Drug Companies, Medical Device Makers, and Med Schools

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and reporter John Fauber have filed suit against the University of Wisconsin's medical school and its supporting foundation for violating the state's public records laws. The lawsuit alleges that the school and foundation have wrongfully refused to release faculty comments about a proposed conflict-of-interest policy.

The institutions have refused to provide the faculty comments on the ground that they were not public records, and even if they were, there was a greater public interest in keeping them secret than in disclosing them.

Critics contend that the money drug and medical-device companies pay to doctors and medical school lead to higher health care costs.

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Drug-addict study released via FOIA request raises ethical questions

A 1994-95 research study, released in response to an FOIA request, indicates that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs gave heroin addicts regular doses of morphine and then cut the doses off to measure the effects, the Washington Examiner reported. The patients suffered 787 "adverse events"; however, no follow-up information is available on the study's subjects.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent at least $7.8 million in a secretive experiment to determine whether drug addicts become hyperactive when they suddenly lose access to morphine, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

The VA recruited 69 heroin addicts and began giving them regular doses of morphine. The scientists then cut off the morphine doses at intervals to see what would happen, internal reports show.

The decade-old study, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, offers the fullest picture yet of widespread government trials that gave hard-core drugs to addicts.

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