Senate Targets Head of American Psychiatric Association

From: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=8498

Palo Alto Online News

Stanford psychiatrist target of U.S. Senate inquiry  

 

Alan Schatzberg, chairman of the Psychiatry Department at Stanford Medical School and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, is the target of a congressional inquiry of his income from drug companies, according to U.S. News & World Report.

 

Physicians often receive income from pharmaceutical companies, which they then report to their universities.

 

But the Senate Finance Committee, led by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican member, found an alleged $70,000 discrepancy between the drug company income Schatzberg reported to Stanford and what he received from the companies.

 

Grassley also questioned the rigor of Stanford’s income-reporting guidelines, noting that faculty only have to report “more than $100,000 worth of stock ownership,” while Schatzberg owns $6 million of stock in company called Corcept.

 

“Obviously, $6 million is a dramatically higher number than $100,000,” Grassley said in the Senate on Monday, according to the magazine.

 

“We believe that Dr. Alan Schatzberg … has fully complied with the university’s rigorous conflict-of-interest policy,” the university said in a statement to the magazine.

 

Any discrepancies were likely “misunderstandings” due to “differences in record keeping,” according to Stanford. The university was also aware of the amount of Corcept stock Schatzberg owns.

 

– Don Kazak