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One of the University of Miami’s Finest.

A medical faculty is a dicey thing. Among this cohort of professors at your university, you’ve always got lurking a few ghosted writers, courtesy authors, research fakers, plagiarists, etc.

But your biggest problem these days, what with the money to be made from selling drugs for pharmaceutical companies, comes from corporate shills using their university affiliation to look respectable.

Take Leslie Baumann, pride of the University of Miami. Leslie’s in trouble with the FDA.

… [T]he Food and Drug Administration has cracked down on one of the most widely quoted cosmetic doctors, sending shudders through the ranks of opinion leaders in fashion publishing and vanity medicine.

The F.D.A. recently sent a warning letter to Dr. Leslie Baumann, a well-known dermatologist and clinical researcher in Miami Beach, citing the doctor for expressing premature enthusiasm in the media about Dysport, an injectable antiwrinkle drug the agency had not yet approved.

Dr. Baumann’s comments in the media in 2007 violated restrictions on drug promotion, according to the letter; the agency asked Dr. Baumann to explain how she intended to prevent similar violations in the future.

Under the Obama administration, the F.D.A. has stepped up scrutiny of drug advertising, dispatching many warning letters about misleading commercials and online marketing efforts. But this is believed to be the first time the agency has warned an individual investigator — a medical researcher who oversees a clinical trial — for apparently promoting an unapproved drug.

… Federal rules bar drug makers and investigators on their clinical trials from promoting a drug before the agency has approved the product. Dr. Baumann violated the restrictions, the F.D.A. letter said, because she was an investigator on a clinical trial for Dysport and promoted it well before the drug’s approval in April.

“Early data shows it may last longer and kick in faster than Botox,” Dr. Baumann told the fashion magazine Allure in 2007. She made similar comments that same year to Elle magazine and during an appearance on the “Today” show on NBC in January 2009.

… Dr. Baumann, a former professor of dermatology at the University of Miami medical school …

Former? Why is she still listed as a faculty member? And don’t you think she should update her Amazon.com bibliography?

Margaret Soltan, February 1, 2010 9:11AM
Posted in: conflict of interest

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One Response to “One of the University of Miami’s Finest.”

  1. University Diaries » The University of Miami: A Sunny Spot for Shady People Says:

    […] Charles Nemeroff, who resigned in disgrace from Emory, is now the highest-profile professor at the University of Miami. Until recently they were the proud employers of Leslie Baumann. […]

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