SICK KIDS INQUIRY ADDS TWO PANELISTS

Quebec academics join hospital review of drug-study
dispute

Two prominent academics from Quebec universities have been selected to
help look into a dispute between a drug company and a researcher at
Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

Dr. Frederick Lowy, a psychiatrist and president of Concordia
University, and Bartha Maria Knoppers, a lawyer and ethicist at the
University of Montreal, have agreed to help with the review, the
Hospital for Sick Children announced yesterday.

``Even though I don't know very much about it, I'm going to try and be
helpful,'' Lowy said in an interview from Montreal yesterday.

The issues, he said, affect one of the country's most important
hospitals but also raise questions relating to the relationship
between university research and industry.

The two panelists will join Dr. Arnold Naimark, director of the Centre
for the Advancement of Medicine at the University of Manitoba, who has
been researching the dispute for two months.

The three-member panel is to report to the hospital board by Nov.
30.

But one researcher, who along with a group of researchers had pushed
for an independent probe of the issue, said the latest appointments
won't affect his decision not to participate in the review.

``This changes nothing,'' said Dr. Peter Durie, head of the hospital's
cystic fibrosis research program. ``I haven't spoken to my colleagues
but I will not be participating.''

Durie said he couldn't comment on the two panelists. But with
Naimark's review nearing completion, ``most of the water has already
gone under the bridge so I don't know what these, I'm sure, very fine
people are going to contribute.''

The review is looking into the circumstances around a study conducted
by Dr. Nancy Olivieri, a blood disorder specialist at the hospital,
and Apotex Inc., a major Canadian drug firm.

In 1996, Apotex cancelled Olivieri's research of an experimental drug,
deferiprone, used to treat patients with thalassemia, a deadly blood
disorder, when she threatened to publish negative findings. Apotex
said her results were flawed.

Olivieri and her supporters demanded an independent probe, and the
hospital board agreed to a review of its policies and procedures
relating to research sponsored by drug companies.

Still under pressure, the board later agreed to a review of the Apotex
affair and appointed Naimark in September. But Olivieri, Durie and
others continued to argue for an impartial inquiry with at least three
investigators.

When the hospital agreed, the two sides could not reach agreement on
who the two other panelists should be. So the board told Naimark to
appoint two people.

Olivieri said yesterday she won't participate.

``We have grave concerns about a review that incorporates two
unilaterally appointed individuals within 11 working days of its
projected completion,'' she said.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady