{"id":13588,"date":"2011-09-19T23:59:53","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T03:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=13588"},"modified":"2011-09-20T10:02:54","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T14:02:54","slug":"corrigendum-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/19\/corrigendum-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Corrigendum I…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As best I can tell, a Corrigendum<\/font><\/strong> is an error that gets corrected in a later edition or article. Corrigendum <\/font><\/strong>is a brand new word for me, and it doesn’t yet just roll off the tongue. I think it’s publication-ese for "whoops" – not a way to cover up for previous deceit but rather to correct late-found errors. In my case, it’s to try to clear up my own ignorance of how things like patents work. This post is called Corrigendum I<\/font><\/strong> <\/strong>because I don’t yet feel totally clear myself, but I don’t know a word for "<\/strong>Corrigendum in progress<\/font><\/strong>," so I’ll just number them to mark any improvements in clarity I might muster along  the way.
<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Last week, I reported on a US patent application filed by Gunter Paul Amminger<\/font><\/strong> and Patrick McGorry<\/font><\/strong>  for using ω-3 Fatty Acids to prevent or treat psychosis [the appearance of a conflict of interest…<\/font><\/a><\/u><\/strong>]:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since then, I’ve obtained a copy of the International Patent Application filed on the same date: <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It lists the Orygen Research Centre<\/font><\/strong> as the applicant for all designated States except US<\/em><\/strong> and the inventors [Amminger and McGorry<\/font><\/strong>] as applicants for US only<\/em><\/strong>. It is my assumption that this means that the US patent will be owned by Drs. Amminger <\/font><\/strong>and McGorry<\/font><\/strong>,  and the patent in the rest of the world will belong to the Orygen Research Centre<\/font><\/strong>. It obviously matters in terms of who receives the financial rewards of patent ownership. <\/p>\n

The Orygen Research Centre<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/a> is an non-profit partnered with the University of Melbourne and the Colonial Foundation<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/a>. Dr. McGorry<\/font><\/strong> is the Executive Director. EPPIC<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/u> [Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Program<\/font><\/strong>] is a program of Orygen Youth Health<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/u>, funded by the Victorian Department of Human Services, and is affiliated with other organisations working with young people in early intervention. How all of these organizations sew together is not at all clear to me at this point.<\/p>\n

The EPPIC<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/u> program is operated within the non-profit Orygen<\/font><\/strong><\/a><\/u><\/font><\/strong> with an apparent influx of heavy funding from the Australian government. The use of the ω-3 Fatty Acids is frequently mentioned as a component of these early intervention strategies. So applying for a patent for ω-3 Fatty Acids seems like personal entrepreneurism as a part of a public and non-profit endeavor. In addition, it’s an obvious conflict of interest extraordinaire to be studying and\/or using a drug that you’ve applied to patent in a program that you direct. Certainly, something like that ought to be declared up front in any activity that has to do with the enterprise.<\/p>\n

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So, back to the Corrigendum<\/font><\/strong> part. In my last post, I became hopelessly muddled about the timeline [the appearance of a conflict of interest…<\/font><\/a><\/u><\/strong>]. I understand the source of my confusion better now. The article in the Archives of General Psychiatry<\/font><\/strong> [Long-Chain ω-3 Fatty Acids for Indicated Prevention of Psychotic Disorders<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/a>] that demonstrated their efficacy had these stats:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Submitted for Publication:<\/td>\nDec 18, 2008<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Final Revision <\/sup>received:<\/td>\nMay 26, 2009<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Accepted for Publication:<\/td>\nMay 27, 2009<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Publication Date:<\/td>\nFebruary 2010<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Financial Disclosure:<\/td>\nNone reported<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Trial Registration [clinicaltrials.gov]:<\/td>\nNCT00396643<\/a><\/u><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

There was another more recent [very similar] clinical trial [NEUROPRO-E] registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry<\/font><\/strong>. It’s stats: <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Trial Registration [anzctr.org]:<\/td>\nACTRN12608000475347<\/strong><\/u><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Trial Submitted:<\/td>\nSep 1, 2008<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Trial Registered:<\/td>\nSep 28, 2008<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ethics Committee Approval:<\/td>\nJan 28, 2009 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Trial Last Updated:<\/td>\nAug 3, 2011<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

So I had been confused. These were two separate trials. However, the question of conflict of interest declaration remains. The patent was submitted on September 9, 2008<\/strong> after the trial for the Archives of General Psychiatry <\/font><\/strong>article was completed. So the question is, did Dr. McGorry declare the Patent Application<\/strong> to the Melbourne Health Human Research Ethics Committee<\/strong> prior to their January 28, 2009<\/strong> approval of the new trial? It’s not mentioned on the website.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
These questions may seem nit-picky to some, but personal entrepreneurism and undeclared conflicts of interest are no longer something to be overlooked in our field. This blog and many others are filled with examples to explain why this kind of thing can no longer be tolerated in a healthy scientific climate. Dr. McGorry needs to clear this up for us post-haste…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As best I can tell, a Corrigendum is an error that gets corrected in a later edition or article. Corrigendum is a brand new word for me, and it doesn’t yet just roll off the tongue. I think it’s publication-ese for "whoops" – not a way to cover up for previous deceit but rather to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13588"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13643,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588\/revisions\/13643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}