Harvard Medical School's Drug Industry Ties

Amid Senator Chuck Grassley’s probe into doctors’ financial ties to the drug industry, a group of Harvard Medical School students have joined forces to tighten the school’s conflict-of-interest policies. The New York Times took a closer look at Harvard’s industry ties, revealing some colorful details. Among them:

Some 1,600 of 8,900 professors and lecturers have disclosed financial ties under the school’s disclosure rules. There were 149 with ties to Pfizer and 130 with ties to Merck. The school’s dean, Jeffrey Flier, previously received a $500,000 research grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb and consulted for three Cambridge, Mass., biotech companies, though he told NYT those relationships were over. The prior dean sat on the board of Baxter International for half of the decade he led the school, earning up to $197,000 a year from the company.