[Ip-health] "Minister for Pfizer" web site leads to misconduct charge against University Lecturer

[love@cptech.org]

Dr. Ken Harvey's web site shut down, faces discipline, over criticism of
government official and Pfizer.  
Jamie


http://australianit.news.com.au/common/storyPage/0,3811,2304103%5E442,00.html

Lecturer charged over uni website 
Matthew Spencer and Karen Dearne
10 July 2001 

AN academic website protesting against Federal Health Minister Michael
Wooldridge's allegedly close relationship with the pharmaceutical
industry has been shut down by La Trobe University.

The site, established in response to an ABC Four Corners program,
claimed to explore whether Dr Wooldridge had allowed drug companies to
hijack advice to the Government on which drugs to subsidise.

The site was taken down after a background article on it allegedly
defamed Dr Wooldridge, when it referred to him as the "Minister for
Pfizer" (a drug company).

Senior lecturer in the school of public health Ken Harvey, who
administers the site with colleagues from RMIT and Monash universities,
has been charged with serious misconduct by La Trobe. Neither RMIT nor
Monash has taken any action.

Dr Harvey said the "Minister for Pfizer" jibe was coined by ALP health
spokeswoman Jenny Macklin and linked to satirical material on the site
that had been published in newspapers depicting Dr Wooldridge as being
in bed with the health giant.

"I believe the sentence and the hyperlink, taken together, was
legitimate previously published political comment or satire, and not
defamation," Dr Harvey said. "This is where modern universities have got
to -- the managers have taken over."

Rather than asking for the phrase to be removed from the site, La Trobe
dean of health sciences Stephen Duckett spent three weeks seeking legal
opinion before charging Dr Harvey with misconduct, Dr Harvey said.

"If Duckett was seriously trying to eliminate risk of liability, why the
hell did he wait three weeks?" he said.

"He could have just got on the phone and asked for the phrase to be
changed."

It is understood Professor Duckett became concerned about a possible
defamation problem on June 15, one day after a letter by former
Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) members Professor Don
Birkett and Martyn Goddard was posted on the site.

The suspended site is now at http://users.bigpond.net.au/Medreach/