The chief pharmacist for the Pennsylvania mental hospital system has been suspended without pay and fined $27,000 after it emerged that he accepted a payment from the Pfizer pharmaceutical company to attend a Dublin medical conference at which he recommended a Pfizer anti-depressant drug.
Irish and other European Pfizer customers who attended the May 1999 conference heard Steven Fiorello recommend the Pfizer drug, Zoloft, as cheap and effective, based on a Pennsylvania state study he arranged for a Pfizer employee to conduct.
The Pennsylvania Ethics Commission found that that violated the state's Ethics Act and fined him $27,000 for engaging in an improper business relationship with Pfizer. It found that he had been paid more than $3,000 to sit on a Pfizer marketing panel and also had been paid $1,000 plus $1,000 expenses to attend the Dublin conference.
The commission found that he had recommended Pfizer products at US conferences and also sat on a committee that purchased drugs for Pennsylvania mental hospitals without declaring his relationship with Pfizer. In the 100-page report, seen by The Irish Times, the commission also found that Mr Fiorello had not declared income from the Dublin conference in his income-tax returns. Questioned by investigators, he said he had shown "inattention to detail".
Mr Fiorello (58), from Palmyra, Pennsylvania, said he was prepared to accept the commission's findings, even if he did not agree with them.
Pfizer issued a statement last night which said it "has closely examined its working relationship with Mr Fiorello and is satisfied that all our arrangements with him were completely legal and proper".
The Pennsylvania Ethics Commission has referred Mr Fiorello's case to the Pennsylvania state attorney general for possible criminal prosecution.
John Contino, the ethics commission's executive director, said Mr Fiorello had committed ethical breaches "all over the place" when dealing with Pfizer. He said five Pfizer officials subpoenaed to appear before the commission had been co-operative.
The commission found that Mr Fiorello spoke to Irish and other European doctors at a Pfizer-sponsored "Outcomes Research Workshop" in Dublin on anti-depressant use in multi-hospital systems, based on the research he had arranged for a Pfizer employee to carry out.