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subject of a corrective action by the Minnesota Board of Social Work. The Board found that
Kenney had falsified the initials of physicians on study charts, dispensed study drugs without a
license, performed tasks beyond her competency (such as evaluating drug side-effects), failed to
heed warnings of an impending suicide, and "consistently fell below the minimum standards of
practice for a clinical social worker."
Recently, after filing a Minnesota Data Practices Act request, I obtained a redacted copy of the
minutes for the May 26, 2004 and June 23, 2004 IRB meetings. Those meetings included the
first continuing reviews of the CAF study after the suicide of Dan Markingson. The minutes
show that the Chair of the IRB at the time was Dr. David Adson, whose conflicts of interest
should have precluded him from taking part in any meetings in which this study was discussed.
In fact, according to his CV, Dr. Adson chaired the IRB panel from 1998 through 2005, which
suggests that he not only did he participate in the approval and continuing review of the CAF
study, but of the CATIE study as well.
The minutes do not suggest that Adson was recused from the CAF study review. No conflict of
interest was declared for either meeting. But if the information I have been able to obtain is
correct, Dr. Adson had several significant conflicts of interest that should have precluded his
review of these studies.
First, according to his CV, from 2002 until at least 2009, Dr. Adson was Director of the
Ambulatory Research Center, the unit where many psychiatric studies at the university
including the CAF and CATIE studies -- are housed and administered. Dr. Adson should not
have been responsible for approving studies in his own unit.
Second, as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Adson was a colleague of
Dr. Olson, the Principal Investigator for both studies. Administratively, Dr. Adson answered to
Dr. Charles Schulz, the Co-Investigator on the CAF study. These relationships also constitute a
conflict of interest.
Third, in 2004, the year when the IRB received notice of Markingsons suicide, Minnesota Board
of Pharmacy records indicate that Adson received $5,200 as compensation for services to
AstraZeneca, which sponsored the CAF study, and whose drug, Seroquel (quetiapine) was
being evaluated in the CATIE study. In 2005, when Dr. Adson was still IRB chair, he received
$16,884 from AstraZeneca. In total, according to Board of Pharmacy records, AstraZeneca paid
Dr. Adson over $149,000.
Later, Dr. Adson received substantial funding from other manufacturers of psychiatric drugs with
trials at the University of Minnesota, including Forest, which produces Lexapro (escitalopram)
and Bristol Myers-Squibb, which produces Abilify (aripiprazole.) In total, from 2002 to 2010,
Dr. Adson received at least $650,000 in consulting, research, and speaking fees from the
pharmaceutical industry. (I have attached the records I have found in the Board of Pharmacy
Yours sincerely,