The irascible conflict of interest hunter, linkurl:Senator Charles Grassley;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54561/ (R-IA), has set his sights on a Stanford University psychiatrist who's running a federally funded clinical trial on a drug made by the same company in which he owns millions of dollars in stock. The psychiatrist is linkurl:Alan Schatzberg,;http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Alan_Schatzberg and he is the chair of the psychiatry department at Stanford's School of Medicine. Schatzberg owns $6 million of stock in linkurl:Corcept Therapeutics,;http://www.corcept.com/ according to stories in linkurl:__Science__;http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/624/1 and in the linkurl:__San Jose Mercury News__.;http://www.mercurynews.com/lifeandstyleheadlines/ci_9689122?nclick_check=1 The company produces mifepristone, an abortion drug (also known as linkurl:RU-486);http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/10905/ that is being tested as a depression treatment. Schatzberg is the lead investigator on an NIH-funded study of mifepristone taking place at Stanford, though he is not directly involved in recruiting study subjects or testing patients. Schatzberg and Stanford have attracted Grassley's withering gaze because the Senator, who is the ranking member of the Senate's Committee...
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