For nearly three weeks, Eastman and his colleagues on the executive committee held off on informing the patients or the other doctors conducting the study about Jones' death, the new documents show.
On June 2, 1998, Eastman and a handful of other NIH officials met in Bethesda with the study's six-member data monitoring board to decide whether to banish Rezulin from the experiment.
Experts retained by the NIH to evaluate the case had found that Rezulin probably caused the woman's liver failure. The death certificate attributed the "underlying cause" to the liver failure.
Newly obtained handwritten minutes of the NIH meeting show that Eastman called the case "unusual" and asked, "Do we want to write off [Rezulin] because of a very bizarre death?"
The board recommended unanimously that Rezulin be removed; the director of the NIH's diabetes institute upheld the recommendation.
On June 4, 1998, 18 days after Jones died, the chairman of the NIH's executive committee informed doctors conducting the study about her death.
"It is possible that you may be contacted by the press," the official wrote. "Please be polite, but refer all questions to Dr. Richard Eastman."
In May 2000, the inspector general's office found that Eastman's arrangements "were reviewed and approved in accordance with the internal NIH regulations."
The investigation report concluded that unspecified "administrative errors ... contributed to the appearance of a conflict of interest associated with Dr. Eastman's outside activities with Warner-Lambert Company."
In June 2000, after nearly a decade on the job, Eastman, whose federal salary was $144,000, left the NIH to join a medical device company based in Redwood City, Calif.
Eastman was not alone in taking Warner-Lambert's money.
At least 12 of the 22 academic researchers selected by the NIH to help conduct the nationwide study received company fees or research grants, according to records and interviews.
The chairman of the study's data monitoring board, responsible for protecting patients from unnecessary risks, also took fees from a Warner-Lambert affiliate.
-- David Willman
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CASE STUDY | JOHN I. GALLIN
A Clinic Chief's Desire to `Learn About Industry'
BETHESDA, Md. -- Dr. John I. Gallin is director of the NIH Clinical Center -- the nation's largest site of medical research on humans.
