Minnesota Bioethicist Critiques Business in Medicine

Offering accounts of unethical clinical trials, University of Minnesota professor Carl Elliott warned students and faculty at Harvard Medical School Thursday night about the dangers of mixing healthcare and business.

Elliott, a bioethicist and doctor at the University of Minnesota, spoke about his recent book “White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine,” which critiques the increasing role that big businesses play in medicine.

“What happens when you turn medicine into a business?” Dr. Elliott said. “Well, what happens is that you get a lot of scams and swindles and con artists.”

Elliott said he was motivated to pursue his research after reading a 2005 industry-funded drug study that raised bioethics concerns. He argues that in the study, the University of Minnesota coerced a 26-year-old psychiatric patient, Dan Markingson, into participating in a clinical trial despite repeated objections from his mother, who said that her son would commit suicide because of the medication. Markingson died by suicide a few months later.

The University of Minnesota has continued to defend its research, claiming that no evidence has been found that Markingson was coerced into the study. Still, Elliott has demanded that the school acknowledge that it was responsible for Markingson’s death.

After Elliott’s speech, Robert D. Truog, a professor at Harvard Medical School, also acknowledged flaws in many clinical trials. He claimed that many scientists involved in pharmaceutical-funded trials manipulate data analysis for outcomes that they want to see.

“Those involved have lost the principles of scientific ethics, which is a real dedication to scientific integrity,” he said.

In an interview, Jon W. Boyd, an organizer of the event and a professor at Harvard Medical School, commended Elliott for his research.

“The public service that I see [Elliott] doing is to educate the public about medical issues,” he said.

Boyd also said he hoped that, through the presentation, audience members would be exposed to the relationship between medicine and business “so that they can try to help effect change for the better.”

Adil Menon, a graduate student in bioethics who attended the event, felt that Elliott’s work has changed his perspective on bioethics.

“[Reading Elliott’s book] forced me to start questioning things that I had taken for granted before and to realize that medicine is great but it does have issues that need to be exposed, that need to be addressed,” he said.