Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Emory University has reprimanded one of its leading psychiatrists for speaking on behalf of a drug company while conducting research that touched on the use of that company’s drug in pregnant women.

Dr. Zachary Stowe, director of the Women’s Mental Health Program at Emory, is listed as the primary investigator on at least three National Institutes of Health grants that involve antidepressant use in pregnant women and the effects on children delivered by those women.

According to records, Dr. Stowe received payments totaling more than $250,000 between 2007 and 2008 from drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline PLC, during which time Dr. Stowe delivered at least 95 promotional talks on behalf of the drug company. Dr. Stowe contends his work with GlaxoSmithKline was not a conflict of interest and that such relationships are not uncommon in research.

Dr. Stowe is the second Emory researcher who has been reprimanded for not properly disclosing his financial arrangements with drug companies. Last fall, Dr. Charles Nemeroff resigned as chairman of Emory’s Department of Psychiatry for similar conflict of issues concerns.

Of heightened concern is GlaxoSmithKline’s antidepressant Paxil, which recent studies have shown have a greater risk of causing serious birth defects in the children of women who took the antidepressant during the first three months of pregnancy. As a result, GlaxoSmithKline updated the cautions section of Paxil to indicate the risk of overall birth defects, in particular heart defects.

Sources:
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Wall Street Journal

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