Embattled Stanford psychiatrist and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, linkurl:Alan Schatzberg,;http://www.stanford.edu/group/adolescent.ctr/Research/schatzberg.html has resigned leadership of an NIH-funded research project studying the effects of mifepristone (also known as linkurl:RU-486);http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/10905/ on patients with depression. The drug is made by Corcept Therapeutics, a company which Schatzberg co-founded, and in which he owns more than $6 million in stocks. His financial conflicts of interest have been linkurl:scrutinized;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54771/ for several months by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA). Schatzberg is also the chair of the department of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. According to linkurl:__The Stanford Daily__,;http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2008/8/14/profStepsDownAfterConflict university officials call Schatzberg's exit from the project, which was run on grants from the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), "temporary." Grassley first called attention to Schatzberg's apparent conflicts about six months ago, and the Senator has pursued the issue in several letters sent to Stanford administrators. Though Stanford University officials claim that Schatzberg...
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