Dr. Rubin's conflict of interest, explained by Kirsty Duncan

[Cece]

http://kirstyduncan.liberal.ca/blog/let ... -research/

I am writing to you in order to bring an urgent issue to your attention. As you know, Dr. Barry Rubin is a member of CIHR’s expert working group to study CCSVI. According to CIHR’s website, the working group’s mandate is: “The scientific expert working group will make recommendations on further studies including, if appropriate, a pan-Canadian interventional clinical trial that would evaluate the safety and efficacy of venous angioplasty in patients with MS, and will provide advice on the protocols to expedite such a trial (e.g. inclusion/exclusion criteria).”

Dr. Rubin is the fourth author on an article, ‘The “Liberation Procedure” for Multiple Sclerosis: Sacrificing Science at the Altar of Consumer Demand’, in the May, 2012 Journal of the American College of Radiology, Volume 9, Issue 5 , Pages 305-308.

Alain, you and I have discussed conflict of interest numerous times before-both at committee and in correspondence. Surely, a member of the scientific expert working group publishing such a paper questioning clinical trials is in conflict with the group’s mandate.

It is absolutely imperative that all members of the expert working group be independent, but equally important, be seen as independent, and not to have taken a position. Dr. Rubin can no longer be seen to be an independent judge of the scientific literature, as demonstrated by the conclusion of the paper.

She has much more to say, and it is all well said.
Dr. Rubin has a conflict of interest and should be removed from the CIHR expert working group to study CCSVI.

[1eye]

I think she did well also to emphasize appearances. The mere fact of his name being listed as one of the authors of a document with such a title is enough to ruin the appearance of his impartiality. That much is cut-and-dried. What concerns me more is the role of such an insider and obviously biased opinion, in the decisions made by the FDA.

That such a document is the basis for the FDA's involvement in shutting down legitimate research, with safe progress having been made for such a long time, smells to high heaven of some kind of influence-manipulation. If drug companies are involved, they also were the source of many such conflicts on the CIHR, which has done a flip-flop on research into CCSVI. He also managed to get himself on the Ontario panel assessing follow-up treatment.

Wasn't one of the CIHR panelists said to be lobbying for a major drug company at the time of the CIHR's statements that no CCSVI research should occur? The appearance seems to me to be: an attempt to sway government action in Canada, followed by a more successful effort with the US Agency, by people who were beholden to drug companies.

The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
Bruce Cockburn

[tiltawhirl]

I fear there is more douche-baggery on the horizon before this all settles down.

tilt

[scorpions]

So the CCSVI conspiracy theories are still alive and well I see. Maybe a Senator McCarthy like figure will step forward and weed out these medical infiltrators!!!!! Glad everyone is still kicking.

[erinc14]

he isn't the only one with a conflict of interest

[1eye]

So the CCSVI conspiracy theories are still alive and well I see. Maybe a Senator McCarthy like figure will step forward and weed out these medical infiltrators!!!!! Glad everyone is still kicking.

Bringing Joe McCarthy into this is an insult. He was an alcoholic semi-literate, who was drummed out of the US Senate for ruining many careers with his televised Communist witch-hunt. I was indirectly one of his victims.

Coincidentally, now I may be a victim of the paper that some people 'have here in their hands'. I consider that the approach of some powerful individuals to the science of CCSVI has been just another witch-hunt, or at least a feeble attempt at one, using the same tired excuses for arguments over and over. He is not still kicking. We are.

The trouble with both witch-hunts, has been the attempts to ruin careers, by ignorant people.

Dr. Duncan is a scientist and University teacher, besides being a Member of the Parliament of Canada. I will not reiterate her recent contributions to the science on this subject. Her Subcommittee in that Parliament had as witnesses Dr. Baudet, Dr. Zamboni, Dr. Simka, and Dr. MacDonald, as well as the "MS" Society. I'm sure she would have even heard from Dr. Freedman if he had expressed interest. Comparing her work to the House Un-American Activities Committee of the nineteen-fifties is just plain ridiculous.

What was the title of Joe MacCarthy's biography? I think the over-zealous opponents of the CCSVI procedure have enough rope.

I can picture Dr. Rubin et al, at the gates of heaven, in committee deciding that Pasteur, Fleming, and Salk must go 'Down' to the 'Other Place'.

[1eye]

Who's that again?

[NHE]

Who's that again?

Amazing...

Last October, the Harper government appointed Bernard Prigent to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the federal agency that distributes about a billion dollars annually for health research. That appointment was met with near-universal condemnation from medical ethicists, because Prigent is a vice-president of Pfizer Canada, a firm that stands to profit from the decisions made at CIHR.

---

But the parliamentary committee did not have a crucial piece of evidence: not only is Prigent a vice president of Pfizer, but he is also a registered lobbyist for Pfizer. That information is only now coming to light, and has never been previously reported. According to the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada, the government agency that regulates lobbyists, Prigent's position as Pfizer lobbyist is to sway policy at the "Canadian Institute of Health Researchers (CIHR) and other Research Oriented Spending Programs as it relates to private/public research and development partnerships," and Prigent is to achieve these aims through both oral and written techniques.

In other words, Prigent the Pfizer lobbyist is paid to lobby Prigent the CIHR official.

[Cece]

that just hurts the brain.
good find, 1eye

[1eye]

The appointment (of Bernard Prigent) seems to have been well-timed. It's as if they had prior knowledge of a certain upcoming TV broadcast about Dr. Paulo Zamboni, by CTV, the following month. A billion dollars is a pretty good budget, but I guess it can buy a lot of hocus-pocus.

One year previously, the Conservatives had just taken power in Canada.

[tiltawhirl]

Un-fucking-believable.

tilt

[NHE]

Who's that again?

Federal rules require that lobbyists file monthly reports about "oral and arranged communications relating to a contract regardless of who initiated the communication," but Prigent has not filed such a report.

They clearly need a new rule that requires a report every time he mumbles something under his breath to himself.

[1eye]

Who's that again?

Federal rules require that lobbyists file monthly reports about "oral and arranged communications relating to a contract regardless of who initiated the communication," but Prigent has not filed such a report.

They clearly need a new rule that requires a report every time he mumbles something under his breath to himself.

I wonder if he has any contracts with the FDA? Maybe they are paying him too, for lobbying the CIHR.

[1eye]

This was easy to find. It was pointed to by Google, but originally from Cheerleader:

Click for her post...

[1eye]

Reading through some of what was written as far back as 2010, I see this is just more of the same. Since the combined incomes of all the "MS" patients in the world is not equal to the spending and corrupting power of the large drug dealers, who have billions of our tax dollars similarly at their disposal, this is an effort doomed to be obfuscated and obstructed for the foreseeable future. Two years have not changed a thing in Canada, and now the US is similarly hamstrung.