New Post for Senate’s Medical Research Watchdog
ScienceInsider
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
by Eli Kintisch
21 September 2010

If you’re a medical researcher or administrator, you don’t want to receive an e-mail from Paul Thacker. He was the key staffer behind a series of investigations since 2007 by Senator Chuck Grassley [R–IA], the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. His work focused on drug company payments to a psychiatrist at the University of Cincinnati, another at Stanford University, and Charles Nemeroff, then with Emory University — causing much chaos and agitation among researchers — and changes in numerous academic conflict-of-interest policies. In some people’s eyes, his work led to valuable reforms, whereas others said Grassley, and the tightening of the rules he inspired, went too far. Either way, there was no question Thacker, a former journalist, made an impact using his dogged investigative skills combined with the power that Grassley imbued in him.

Now, due to Republican term limits on committee chairmanships, Grassley will be leaving Finance, probably moving to the Judiciary committee, so Thacker has a new job. He’ll be an investigator for the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight [POGO], a Washington, D.C., federal watchdog, where he’ll focus on health care. Thacker will also target environmental topics such as the Obama Administration’s response to the oil spill, he tells ScienceInsider.

Paul Thacker, Investigator

Paul Thacker joined POGO in September 2010 after working for three years as an investigator on the Senate Finance Committee for Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. The Senate Finance Committee has direct oversight of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and Mr. Thacker focused most of his energies on health care oversight. Mr. Thacker spearheaded a multi-year investigation into Avandia, a blockbuster diabetes drug that research suggests was linked to heart attacks. The British Medical Journal called for the drug to be pulled off the market, and Mr. Thacker’s investigation pressured the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to place patient safety before drug industry profits.

In 2007, Mr. Thacker helped initiate an ongoing probe of the financial ties between industry and physicians who receive research grants from the National Institutes of Health [NIH]. Media exposure and pressure on corporations and the federal government resulted in universities across the country tightening their policies on physician interactions with industry and caused the NIH to introduce new conflict-of-interest policies. The investigations were also critical in helping to pass Senator Grassley’s Physicians Payments Sunshine Act, which recently became law.

Prior to working on the Hill, Mr. Thacker spent several years as a journalist writing about science, medicine, and the environment. His work was profiled in the first season of the award-winning PBS series "Exposé: America’s Investigative Reports." He attended the University of California at Davis where he received a B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Ecology and Evolution.

While Senator Grassley is to be complimented for his work in exposing the widespread invasion of academic medicine by pharmaceutical companies, Paul Thacker has been the motor that drove that machine. His research and journalistic skills exposed Alan Schatzberg [the chair of psychiatry at Stanford University], Charles Nemeroff [the chair at Emory University] and a host of others. Even though his boss is an overly conservative religious zealot, I’m sorry to see  Senator Grassley move from the Senate Finance Committee. Much has been accomplished. But Paul Thacker moving to POGO to continue focusing on health care is very welcome news. I hope he keeps his keen eye open to the Psychopharmaceutical Industry. There’s still plenty that needs careful scrutiny [see also A Senate Investigator Looks Back: Thacker Speaks]…