Patients' Health or Company Profits? The Commercialisation of Academic Research

This paper is a personal account of the a case study dealing with the author's work at the University of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children on a drug, deferiprone. When evidence emerged that deferiprone might be inadequately effective in a substantial proportion of patients, the drug company issued legal threats when the author proposed informing her patients and the scientific community. The article discusses the ethical implications of this case, and how having commercialization as the driving force behind the development of new drugs is undermining the integrity of scientific research.