Dr. Robert Belshe traveled throughout rural Missouri and Illinois last year to discuss flu vaccines during the H1N1 scare. Drug companies Merck & Co. Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline helped pick up the tab.
Belshe, head of Saint Louis University’s Center for Vaccine Development, spoke at more than 20 educational forums on behalf of the drug companies, and he was paid roughly $18,000 in speaker’s fees and travel expenses, according to the companies’ financial disclosures.
“Companies come to me because I have a deep background in vaccines and because of my training,” Belshe said. “And if I’m available, they compensate me for that.”
Belshe has lots of company. Dr. David Alpers, a gastroenterologist at Washington University School of Medicine, received $134,688 from GlaxoSmithKline in compensatory fees last year, according to company filings. Dr. David Weinstein, an OB/GYN at Missouri Baptist, was paid more than $103,000 — $31,000 from Glaxo-SmithKline and $72,500 from Eli Lilly and Co. — in fees, according to filings.
Friday, April 23, 2010
St. Louis doctors get $2.5 million from Pfizer, Lilly, Glaxo, Merck - St. Louis Business Journal:
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