Emory School of Medicine toughens ethics policy

Emory University School of Medicine announced a toughened ethics policy Wednesday to better govern faculty and students in their financial dealings with outside industry.

Late last year, Emory became the focus of an ethics investigation by Congress and the National Institutes of Health. The NIH froze funds for a $9.3 million project.

Dr. Charles Nemeroff, the former chair of Emory’s psychiatric and behavioral sciences department and an international expert on depression, was the central figure in the investigation. Congressional investigators said Nemeroff received $2.8 million in consulting fees from companies whose drugs he was evaluating and he failed to report a third of that amount to the university.

Emory also said Nemeroff earned $800,000 in speaking fees for appearing at industry events for one company.

Attempts to reach Nemeroff, who left the department chairmanship late last year but remains a professor at Emory, and Medical School Dean Thomas Lawley, were unsuccessful.

In a statement released by the school last year, Nemeroff said, “to the best of my knowledge, I have followed the appropriate university regulations concerning financial disclosures.”

The school of medicine’s new ethics policy states that:

• Faculty, staff, students and trainees are prohibited from receiving any compensation, gifts or travel expenses from industry for speaking at industry promotional events.

• Faculty, staff, students and trainees are prohibited from accepting gifts from industry regardless of the amount. Industry gifts to the School of Medicine must be received through the School of Medicine Development Office.

• Industry representatives will have access to Emory buildings and personnel only by faculty invitation for necessary interactions. Sales and marketing representatives will be restricted from educational and training events and from patient areas.

• Faculty will disclose any financial relationships with industry in all formal lectures, and students and trainees may not be assigned to projects that are related to a faculty adviser’s conflict of interests.

Medical school spokeswoman Sarah Goodwin said a search will be conducted for a new chair for the psychiatry department and that the $9.3 million project has resumed. She said Nemeroff was no longer in charge.