Univ. of Cincinnati Psychiatrist Under More Scrutiny Over Funding

-Wall Street Journal

04/22/2008 - An academic psychiatrist whose ties to AstraZeneca got called out by a U.S. senator a couple of weeks ago is getting a more scrutiny from her university.

AstraZeneca told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that the value of its payments to Melissa DelBello between 2005 and 2007 was $238,000 — some of which she apparently hadn’t reported to her bosses at the University of Cincinnati. DelBello has published research on the company’s antipsychotic drug Seroquel in children, including a 2002 study that concluded kids did well on the medicine.

Now DelBello has to review all of of her industry interactions with her department chairman, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Her personnel file will also reflect that she didn’t tell the university about some of her outside funding.

“It’s to protect her,” the university’s VP of research, Sandra Degen, told the paper. “Basically, we were documenting that there were some discrepancies in what was reported.”

DelBello declined to comment for the Enquirer’s article. Deven said there was no evidence that the funding affected the substance of DelBello’s research. “The main point is how the perceived conflict of interest is disclosed,” Degen told the paper. “As long as you disclose it, then it’s fine.”