Dive Brief:
- The University of California regents will pay $10 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a whistleblower who alleged widespread conflicts of interest at UCLA’s medical school.
- In announcing the settlement, the UC regents denied any unlawful conduct or wrongdoing by faculty, and said that patient care had not been compromised.
- The whistleblower, Dr. Robert Pedowitz, also accused the university of retaliating against him for speaking up. Pedowitz is the former chairman of UCLA’s orthopedic surgery department, and he resigned from the faculty as part of the settlement agreement.
Dive Insight:
Pedowitz had sued the regents, UCLA, other surgeons, and senior university officials, accusing them of failing to act on his conflict-of-interest complaints. He said that doctors’ financial ties to medical device and drug makers could compromise patient care and research, and he accused UCLA of ignoring the conflicts of interest because it, too, benefited financially. One example of the financial ties: An orthopedic surgeon received consulting fees of $250,000 from Medtronic, a medical device maker, in 2008.