“The rest of your comment is nonsense. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but it is nonsense. I used the word “probably” in a draft and didn’t change it after getting the facts confirmed.”

Don’t be sorry, my argument isn’t nonsense, so I’ll try to clarify it again. If you read your post carefully, we are quite far from the full disclosure of Dr. Offits conflicts of interest. Removal of the word “probably” still doesn’t give us full disclosure, it just isn’t as good an example of the unknowns. On the topic of full disclosure, we’re no further ahead than before you wrote the article since there are no new public documents that provide full disclosure. The use of “Probably” is not the only place you couched your argument with conditional statements as I pointed out above.

My point is quite simple: Dr. Offit has not fully disclosed publically the details of his conflicts of interest today or in the past. You have not provided any additional public details bringing us to full disclosure either.

Kev’s article clearly states that he only considers undeclared conflicts of interest an issue.

Given that Dr. Offit has not provided full disclosure, it should be considered an issue.

“Redefining “where the irony lies” is a bit silly at this point. In the past you were pretty good at admitting a mistake. It served you well then, it would have helped this time.”

I would admit a mistake if there was one. The irony still exists as I pointed out. Originally, I picked the first instance of conditional clauses to point out the irony. You corrected your entry, and I have since clarified and illustrated that the irony still exists.

“Now into the “blatant misquote”. I’d have given you points for that if you brought it up in an earlier response. However, in the “oops, that was a fact, not a probably” response, it doesn’t carry as much weight.”

You can choose to keep any misquotes you want in your article, I’m sure that adds to the credibility of an article complaining about accuracy in another journalist’s work (irony meter again). I didn’t realize misquotes are only a problem depending on the time of day they’re pointed out.

“Would you like to take a stab at the actual point of this post—the fact that the COI’s are now over? You’ve gone off topic enough for this post.”

Documents about WISTAR and CHOP don’t provide full disclosure on Dr. Offit’s interests. If there were any conditional terms in the contract of sale, then a conflict of interest may still very well exist even if money has changed hands. This happens all the time in industry. Companies often don’t put sales on their books until years later, when conditional clauses have been met. Payment terms can also be conditional, so we don’t have anything near full disclosure of Dr. Offit’s interests.

Your casual dismissal of any possible influence from the Pharmaceutical donations to medical schools is not consistent with peer-reviewed literature in which Conflict of Interest in medical schools and universities is indeed a topic of concern in very recent times.

If there is no further conflict of interest at all, then why has Dr. Offit not written an official letter to CBS pointing that out? It is interesting that the only official letter (from VFV) doesn’t actually address any specific points in the article while calling for a retraction. Compare this to Dr. Offits’ op-ed piece to the NYT that was littered with inaccuracy. Dr. Poling responded officially, publically, and specifically addressed the inaccuracies with actual information. It sounds like Dr. Offit had the opportunity to provide input, and declined. Given his writing prowess, I’m surprised he has chosen not to correct these misconceptions himself. It’s great that you’ve pointed out misunderstandings regarding the workings of patents in medical research, but without full disclosure, we can’t really confirm your assertion that he has no conflicts of interest.

you are missing big points again. Big points

If he just sold his share, then he had a conflict of interest up until his share was sold. We already know he has historically violated conflict of interest guidelines.

Dr. Offit worked for institutions (Wistar and Chop) while doing his research. He sold his intellectual property to them when he accepted the positions. That’s pretty much standard practice in all research/development (not just medicine).

If I see another post misunderstanding that, it will be deleted.

Wistar and CHOP sold their remaining rights to a third party recently. Just a little digging and you will find that Wistar sold partial rights years ago.

Is it public? The patents shows transfers are ongoing (dated June 2008).

The rest of your comment is nonsense. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but it is nonsense. I used the word “probably” in a draft and didn’t change it after getting the facts confirmed.

Sorry that tripped you up. Redefining “where the irony lies” is a bit silly at this point. In the past you were pretty good at admitting a mistake. It served you well then, it would have helped this time.

Your whole reliance on the word “probably” is either misunderstanding or misdirection anyway—see my above comment.

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co......ment-52230

Now into the “blatant misquote”. I’d have given you points for that if you brought it up in an earlier response. However, in the “oops, that was a fact, not a probably” response, it doesn’t carry as much weight.

Would you like to take a stab at the actual point of this post—the fact that the COI’s are now over? You’ve gone off topic enough for this post.

If the details of Dr. Offits agreement are public I would appreciate the link. Otherwise, the details are not public.

Is Dr. Offit acting as a consultant for Merck? Does Dr. Offit currently have a share in the licensing fees of the Rotateq Vaccine? If he has either, then he is in a position of conflict of interest when discussing the topic of vaccines.

If he just sold his share, then he had a conflict of interest up until his share was sold. We already know he has historically violated conflict of interest guidelines.

Kev,

The irony is that by your definition, you felt that disclosure was the most important aspect of conflict of interest. By originally using the word Probably, and later this quote: “I’m not going to downplay the likelihood that Dr. Offit made money off of the vaccine patents. “, it is pretty clear that you don’t know the extent of the conflict of interest, yet you are arguing that everything is perfectly satisfactory.

That is where the irony lies. Not the use of the term itself, but the dissonance of the arguments.

“But, that doesn’t sound as interesting as “He holds a patent licensed for $182 million”, does it?”

That’s a blatent misquote if I ever read one. Especially when you quote it correct before.

As for your argument that “independent” universities are immune from Donating Pharma fund influence, I suggest you do a little research into that matter. There are enough problems with that model to write a whole article about it. I suppose you believe the peer-reviewed journals are immune from industry influence despite their reliance on advertising revenue as well?

the key point is not whether Dr. Offit has an agreement with his institution (he does). The key point is the fact that the royalties have been sold—by whoever owns them.

Either way—if Dr. Offit had direct control of the royalties or not—the fact is, Whatever Dr. Offit says from here on out doesn’t affect his royalties on RotaTeq.

That COI is gone.

I would add that since he continues to talk about autism issues even though it can’t affect his bottom line tells us pretty clearly that his activities in autism in previous years were likely not motivated by profit.

The argument was weak to begin with. Now it is just plain sad.

Schwarz, you just tried to make a point with me where you said ‘I would guess’...come on feller, its gotta be one thing or the other.

You are aware that Dr. Offit now has no financial COI invovling the discussion of vaccines? So, his comments about autism and vaccination are not conflicted?

His book, Autism’s False Prophets, is being published and will be publicized at at time when Dr. Offit can not benefit financiall from it.

He’s even donating the royalties from the book. Think about that—the time put into the book is essentially a loss for him since he could have applied that to a profitable venture.

So, you have one of the world’s most respected vaccine researchers using his expertise to discuss a major problem in the autism community—at a personal financial loss to himself.

For those who are actually thinking this through, it is a tough battle to attack Dr. Offit.

Rather than fight him on the science and facts, they are working on throwing mud. Tells a lot.

It’s ironic that you’re using the term “probably”. That was one of the main points of the report. You don’t actually know any details about what the financial conflict of interest is, you just know it actually exists.

Thanks for catching that. I didn’t update it after my email to Dr. Offit.

My statement was correct. I didn’t need the word “probably”.

Would you like me to edit/delete your comment since it is inaccurate and based on a false assumption?

It’s ironic that you’re using the term “probably”. That was one of the main points of the report. You don’t actually know any details about what the financial conflict of interest is, you just know it actually exists.

That seems to fall under the definition of “undeclared details”. That also falls under Orac’s definition of “less” information about the conflict of interest. All of these facts fall right in line with the report.

1) We have experts being called independent, experts who influence billions of dollars of health care spending
2) We know they have a conflict of interest despite being in positions of influence
3) They don’t declare the details about their conflicts even in some cases when regulations require it

Nothing you wrote here changes those facts.