Canada Reviews Pfizer Executive Appointment To Health Board

Canada’s Health Committee plans to review the controversial appointment of a Pfizer exec to the board of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the government agency that oversees health research in Canada, The Tyee reports. Bernard Prigent, Pfizer Canada’s medical director, was appointed last month to the CIHR’s governing council (see here). Last month, CIHR president Alain Beaudet said that he hopes to create closer ties with industry to ensure involvement and investment, but the move has stirred concerns since the organization is responsible for allocating research funding across the country, the paper writes. “There’s no place in our scientific organizations like CIHR for a drug company official,” NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis, tells The Tyee. “It’s shocking that this government appointed the vice president of the biggest brand name drug company in the world, to the board of the CIHR which is supposed to be a body of independents and scientific endeavors free from any ties to industry at all.”
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