Thread by @DrNancyOlivieri

🔥podcast on Pharma billionaire Barry Sherman.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1…

As @kathleengoldhar @blandrea outline: this wasn't just about a violent death, but the consequences of #Pharma "partnering" with academia.

🧵on why this matters to any who may ever need a prescription drug.

"Barry Sherman is the only person I have ever met with no redeeming features whatsoever":
🎯Dr. Morton Shulman in macleans.ca/news/canada/ba…
But this was not just a matter of an abrasive personality.
/2

In 1996, I identified problems in the safety of a drug in a clinical trial of *children*, a trial to which Sherman had provided minor funds to obtain patent rights.

He threatened 'all legal remedies' if I published.
I published anyway.

Decades of litigation were to follow.
/3

All might have been a different if @UofT had been supportive.
But it was as if Sherman walked in & passed out franchises.
@uoftmedicine courted Sherman, while bullying my supporters & me as related here (in one of the longest papers) in J Med Ethics:
jme.bmj.com/content/30/1/8/
/4

With important exceptions, 🇨🇦 media were inert or defended Sherman and his allies.
Then @60Minutes nailed the story.
Watch the end of this🔥program for a remarkable exchange: Lesley Stahl vs Barry Sherman: "We’re not your pals!"
One for the ages.
At inthepatientsinterest.org/media-files/
/5

Back to @UofT, where the then-Dean of @uoftmedicine allowed Sherman’s biggest supporter, despite repeated #misconduct, to dodge real consequences.
Story of the tragic collateral damage of this "collaboration" obetween #academia + #Pharma: thestar.com/opinion/contri…
#Motherisk
/6

And for any who might well ask the Q:

"What about the @UofT ethicists, who could have defended the rights of #academicfreedom, and of disclosures to patients, against those of a #Pharma CEO...?"

The A: jme.bmj.com/content/30/1/44
🙏@FrancoiseBaylis
/7

Reminder: this isn’t a personal injury story.
It parallels the saga of EVERY drug whose problematic data #Pharma tries to suppress.

Sherman used billion$ (as #Pharma can) to pay MDs to define "his" drug as safe.

He also liked SLAPP lawsuits, a lot.
caut.ca/latest/publica…
/8

Sherman went farther when submitting data to #FDA: he *excluded data* on 45% of study subjects.

For those who think our regulators protect us from questionable drugs:
blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/11/04… 🙏@CitizenHRG @bmj_latest
/9

Back in Toronto, Sherman continued to use "donation power as a political tool.”
After @UofT's president tried but failed to promote his interest$ with 🇨🇦 then-PM, Sherman reneged on his promised donation.
thestar.com/news/gta/2018/…
But he was an equal opportunity donator...
/10

Sherman provided “1 to 5 million $" to @UHN (proudly trumpeted in its University Avenue lobby) where, contemporaneously, my colleagues and I were exposing some interesting activities…
/11

Over the years in which Sherman supported @UHN, certain of its doctors prescribed 'his’ drug -- still unlicensed -- to most locally-transfused patients.
No clinical trial. No evidence of #informedconsent.
But evidence of harm, incl more than one death:
thestar.com/news/investiga…
/12

As nailed by @Drdavid Healy: "Just when you thought the saga was beginning to resemble the final scenes from Hamlet...."

"If anything can be more damning than a hospital being linked to a set of predictable deaths, this case has it":

davidhealy.org/repetition-com…
/13

We've asked @UHN for years for an external investigation into how/why patients were given Sherman's *unlicensed* drug over licensed effective alternatives: inthepatientsinterest.org

All of the above is why the Sherman story matters to any in academia battling #Pharma influence
/14

Little has changed.
As written in hope yrs ago: "Authors must have access to *raw* #data from clinical trials, not be impeded from publishing & disclose all #ConflictsOfInterest": ecclectica.brandonu.ca/issues/2005/3/…
Still not happening.
#PatientSafety #AcademicFreedom #bullying #Pharma
/end