Criminal Charges Filed Against Pharma Scientist

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Criminal Charges Filed Against Pharma Scientist

 

National Institutes Of Health

 

U.S. Criminal Charges Filed Against Scientist

 

Undisclosed Consulting Deals at Issue

 

By David A. Fahrenthold

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 5, 2006; Page B06

 

A top scientist at the National Institutes of Health

whose alleged failure to disclose consulting contracts

with a drug company helped set off a probe of possible

ethical lapses by researchers was criminally charged

yesterday with violating federal conflict-of-interest

rules.

 

Pearson " Trey " Sunderland III, 55, who was chief of

the Geriatric Psychiatry Branch of the National

Institute of Mental Health, faces one misdemeanor

count that could bring a year in prison and a $100,000

fine, federal prosecutors said. The charge was

outlined yesterday in a document called a " criminal

information " -- a signal that Sunderland had waived

the usual grand jury indictment process, and that a

plea agreement may be forthcoming.

 

In charging Sunderland, prosecutors alleged that he

accepted $285,000 in consulting fees and other

payments from the Pfizer Inc. drug company between

1997 and 2004. Sunderland, who lives in Chevy Chase,

failed to list these payments on the required

disclosure forms, prosecutors said.

 

At the time, Sunderland's department was working with

Pfizer in research to identify chemical warning signs

of Alzheimer's disease. As part of the research,

Sunderland helped provide hundreds of government-owned

tissue samples for analysis.

 

In August 2005, a year after Sunderland's case came to

light, NIH imposed rules that bar employees from

working for, or owning stock in, drug or biotech

companies.

 

Sunderland's Washington attorney, Robert F. Muse, said

yesterday he would have no comment on the case.

 

In previous interviews, Muse had said that Sunderland

had made no efforts to conceal his outside work and

that many NIH researchers had come to see the

disclosure forms as " basically a bureaucratic

nuisance. " Sunderland himself invoked his Fifth

Amendment right against self-incrimination when called

to testify before a House of Representatives

subcommittee in June.

 

Don Ralbovsky, a spokesman for the Bethesda-based NIH,

said that Sunderland remains an employee and now works

as a " special assistant and senior adviser " in a

division that gives out grants. He said he could not

comment on whether NIH is seeking to terminate him.

The Geriatric Psychiatry Branch no longer exists,

Ralbovsky said.

 

Sunderland's first hearing is scheduled for Friday

morning in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

 

Both the size of the payments and the transfer of

human tissue made Sunderland's one of the most

infamous examples of apparently lax oversight at the

health institutes. Congressional investigators found

that 44 researchers had off-the-books relationships

with drug and biotech companies.

 

" I found this story incredibly distressing because it

is so important that people have confidence in the

NIH, " Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who heard testimony

about Sunderland at a subcommittee hearing this

summer, said yesterday. " It is a pretty big move for

people to donate human tissue to further scientific

discovery. People have to have confidence that that

decision . . . is treated with the utmost respect. "

 

Charging documents filed yesterday by the Maryland

U.S. attorney's office say Sunderland's involvement

with Pfizer began less than a year after he became

head of the branch in 1997.

 

The charging document provides this account:

 

In 1998, the institute, Pfizer and another company had

agreed to work together on a project to find

" biomarkers " of Alzheimer's in samples of

cerebrospinal fluid provided by the government. Then,

Sunderland signed his own side agreement: He would be

paid $25,000 a year for consulting with Pfizer, plus a

$2,500 fee every time he attended one-day meetings

with the company.

 

The same year, a similar arrangement was set up when

NIMH and Pfizer agreed to collaborate on a study of

two " biomarkers " that were already believed to help

identify Alzheimer's cases. Sunderland made his own

deal, again without disclosing it to his bosses, to

receive another $25,000 per year, prosecutors alleged.

 

In total, prosecutors said, Sunderland was paid

$285,000, plus travel expenses. Though congressional

investigators had previously said he had also violated

rules by transferring the tissue samples, Sunderland

was not charged with that yesterday.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/04/AR2006120401292.\

html

 

 

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