Whether it’s the FDA, so “deeply captured, drawn [so] firmly into the orbit of the pharmaceutical industry that it’s supposed to regulate,” that it routinely fails to inform “scientists, doctors, and the public” about research fraud; or whether it’s the research trials at the University of Minnesota, where the scandal of Dan Markingson’s 2004 death slowly, slowly begins to have real consequences for that institution.
A leading state lawmaker has asked Senate leadership to postpone selection of University of Minnesota regents until next month’s state review of the university’s drug-trial program.
Senate Higher Education Committee chair Terri Bonoff confirmed Friday she has asked Majority Leader Tom Bakk to delay the process in light of a letter from former Gov. Arne Carlson that was critical of the university.
In his letter, delivered Thursday, Carlson expressed concern over the university’s handling of patients in clinical drug research trials, as well as regents’ oversight.
Carlson said the program has a history of deaths, injuries and conflicts of interest. He described the selection of the 11-member Board of Regents as “little more than a political beauty contest.”
A key concern in the letter is the 2004 suicide of drug trial participant Dan Markingson.
Useless trustees make the world safe for things like conflicted researchers, and conflicted researchers can make the situation of participants in experiments unsafe. UM has managed to avoid a serious reckoning with what Markingson’s fate represents, but events are beginning to change that.