What would you like to know about the doctors who are studying the SSRI anti-depressant drugs being prescribed during pregnancy? Would you want to know if any of them had criminal fraud convictions?

Doctors in private practices study drugs for Big Pharma. Their backgrounds are important to pregnant women and babies throughout America. But there is no national database that makes background records on them publicly available. You cannot get them, except in one state, Minnesota. See http://www.state.mn.us/portal/mn/jsp/home.do?agency=BMP if you’re interested.

In Minnesota alone, the drug industry has paid more than 100 doctors to study drugs who have been disciplined or criticized by the state medical board. At least two of them have criminal fraud convictions.

One of the doctors that Minnesota disciplined, Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab, is a Minneapolis psychiatrist. He says the drug makers were aware of his record but have hired him anyway. He says he helped study Paxil, for instance.

He is still overseeing drug testing on patients and pharmaceutical companies are still paying him. Up to twelve drug companies have paid him for research or marketing since he was disciplined. And would you like to know what he was disciplined for?

Ten years ago, Minnesota’s Board of Medical Practice accused him of a “reckless, if not willful, disregard” for the welfare of 46 patients. Of those, 5 died while under his care or shortly afterward. The board suspended his license for seven months and restricted it for two years after that. But that hasn’t kept the drug industry from paying him to study drugs. We wonder how many more like this doctor are on the payroll of Big Pharma.