A senior official at the National Institutes of Health has admitted to committing a criminal conflict of interest by taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in unauthorized payments from the drug company Pfizer, Inc. But he’s still on the job — at least for the moment.
Dr. P. Trey Sunderland III will have to pay back $300,000 he took from the pharmaceutical giant, whom he had been supplying with spinal fluid his government staff had extracted from Alzheimer’s patients. His full sentence will be determined Dec. 22.
Despite his admission, a spokesperson for NIH — where Sunderland has worked since 1982 — confirmed to me today that he is still an employee there. (Sunderland has in the past tried to retire, only to be stopped by his superiors.) So there will be an asterisk next to his name on our Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials.
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