A Brief History of Birgeneau
When the last Disorientation Guide was published in 2004, UC Berkeley was celebrating the appointment of Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. Birgeneau's legacy over the last three years can be seen in other articles in this year's guide - the struggle over the oaks, the British Petroleum deal, and skyrocketing fees. But what about Birgeneau and his track record before his days at Berkeley? All is not rosy.
Birgeneau left his position as President at the University of Toronto to come to Berkeley. At Toronto, Birgeneau had been hailed as a champion of university research and diversity, and the San Francisco Chronicle reports that while President, Birgeneau oversaw a fundraising campaign that broke the Canadian record by bringing in $750 million. This came in part, however, at a great cost to academic freedom. During his term, there were two separate affairs in which researchers voicing concerns about pharmaceutical products were silenced and their academic freedom was not supported by Birgeneau. The cases of Dr. Nancy Olivieri and Dr. David Healy drew national publicity.
In 1998, Olivieri's research into deferiphrone, a drug under development by Canadian pharmaceutical company Apotex, showed the drug could harm patients. When she published her findings, the U of T affiliated Hospital for Sick Kids removed Olivieri as a director of one of its programs, and ordered her not to discuss the issue publicly. At the time, Apotex was in talks with U of T over a $30-million donation to fund U of T and the University Health Network. A settlement was researched in 2002 between Sick Kids, U of T, Olivieri and four other colleagues whose careers also suffered after their support for Olivieri. Birgeneau did not defend her, but rather accepted funding from Apotex for a new university pharmaceutical building.1
Healy was offered a position in September of 2000 by the Centre and Department of Psychiatry. In November, Healy was invited to speak at an international colloquium in Toronto. Healy spoke about the interaction of new drugs and the social order and the conflicts between clinical practice, science and business. “He expressed concern that large pharmaceutical companies, like big tobacco companies, may be avoiding research that reveals the hazards of their products.” He continued on to talk about the controversy about whether antidepressants such as Prozac cause suicide in some types of patients and that he thought it was very strange that not one piece of research had been carried out on that issue.
By the following week, Healy was informed that he no longer had a job at the Centre and the University. There is some suspicion that Healy's job was taken away because Prozac's manufacturer, Eli Lilly and Co. – a generous private donor of over $1 million – put pressure on the University or Centre. The Centre admits the change of mind was sparked by the November lecture and Dr. Healy's “extreme” views on many issues, such as the side effects of SSRIs and the idea that antipsychotics may do more harm than good. Instead of defending Healy, Birgeneau fully supported the decision, despite protests from internationally renowned psychiatrists and medical researches, including two winners of the Nobel Prize for medicine.2
Birgeneau's attitude to selling out research for money should feel familiar to UC Berkeley, where military and corporate funding have been shaping campus research for years. Indeed, Birgeneau's treatment of the incident surrounding Professor Ignacio Chapela is highly reminiscent of the U of T incidences (see separate article).