Stealth Merger: Drug Companies and Government Medical Research

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CASE STUDY | RICHARD C. EASTMAN

A Federal Researcher Who Defended a Client's Lethal Drug

BETHESDA, Md. -- When Dr. Richard C. Eastman talked about the controversial diabetes drug Rezulin, doctors listened. After all, he was the top diabetes researcher at the National Institutes of Health.

Eastman's views were heard clearly in the fall of 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration received reports of liver injury among patients taking the pill.

At the time, Eastman was supervising a $150-million NIH study exploring whether Rezulin or another drug could prevent diabetes in adults who had slightly elevated blood-sugar levels.

In light of the reports of liver injury, an FDA medical officer questioned the prudence of the NIH's nationwide study. Eastman, one of four members of the study's executive committee, said all was well.

"At this point in time, we consider the risk of [Rezulin] to be very minimal," Eastman told the FDA in a Nov. 6, 1997, letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times. "[W]e continue to think that the drug is safe," he wrote. "The risk to benefit ratio in the trial continues to be one that we think is very acceptable."

Eastman signed the letter to the FDA using his government title, director of the NIH's diabetes division. The letter did not disclose that he was also a paid consultant to Warner-Lambert Co., the maker of Rezulin.

The FDA allowed the use of Rezulin to continue in the study. Warner-Lambert went on to collect $2.1 billion in sales revenue from Rezulin before it was pulled from the U.S. market in 2000 after being cited as a suspect in 556 deaths, including 68 that involved liver failure.

Some aspects of Eastman's dual role were reported earlier by The Times. Hundreds of pages of newly obtained internal company and federal documents show that Eastman took previously unreported actions regarding the drug.

Reached by telephone last month, Eastman, 57, declined to be interviewed for this article.

He was hired by Warner-Lambert in October 1995, less than three weeks after he met with a company executive on behalf of the NIH to discuss the drug's safety, records show. As part of his consulting arrangement, Eastman spoke to diabetes "thought leaders" assembled by the company. He also signed a contract prohibiting him from disclosing "confidential and proprietary information" without the company's prior, written consent.