This could be a movie script: Dr. Topol is leaving the Cleveland Clinic and has hired Mark Lanier—the Vioxx plaintiffs’ attorney—to handle his job change! Lanier says that Topol is his personal cardiologist! Let’s have some ideas about who should play Topol and who should play Lanier in the movie. (We don’t need to find an actor for Ray Gilmartin—he will play himself!)
Eric J. Topol, a renowned cardiologist who has been a leading critic of Merck's painkiller Vioxx, is leaving the Cleveland Clinic for Case Western University's Case Medical School, according to Case spokesman George Stamatis. The final announcement follows a heated series of events.
The revelation comes after a Merck spokesman said the company had heard from Mark Lanier, a plaintiff's lawyer, that Topol is leaving the clinic.
"We informed the federal court in New Orleans late today [Wednesday] that Mark Lanier announced in New Jersey that Dr. Topol is leaving the Cleveland Clinic and that Lanier will be his personal lawyer over his departure from the clinic," said Kent Jarrell, the Merck spokesman. "Lanier will be trying to use Topol as his consultant." Lanier is the Houston lawyer who won the first Vioxx case against Merck last year.
Topol had responded late Wednesday that he still works for the Cleveland Clinic and that his future "is not determined yet." He called the Merck statement "misinformation," saying, "I am still working at the clinic, and you have to talk to Mark Lanier, because if there's anything that's going to come out, it's going to come from him." Today, Topol said "categorically" that he would not work with any plaintiff's attorneys.
In a separate interview Thursday, Lanier confirmed that he does have a relationship with Topol. "Dr. Topol has added me to his legal team to try and analyze his best relationship with the Cleveland Clinic," Lanier said.
But he added that Topol had also worked as his doctor. "He's my cardiologist--I was told I needed to have heart surgery. Dr. Topol's the best cardiologist in the world. " Lanier added that discussions between Topol and the Cleveland Clinic are ongoing.
"He and the clinic are working together to see how Eric can best save lives and best do his work as a doctor and a scientist," Lanier said. "Those conversations are ongoing--and they're conversations because Eric loves the Cleveland Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic loves Eric. He's not looking to get out of there even; he's trying to analyze his different options on what he wants to do in life."
Lanier said he disclosed his relationships with Topol in court because he had an obligation to do so. But he added that any accusations that he asked Topol to consult for him are "flat-out wrong." "There is no truth to the statement that I've sought him as an expert," Lanier said.
Merck said Thursday that its lawyer told the judge only that it had heard that Lanier is "hoping to secure his [Topol's] testimony in future cases."
Topol played a key role in establishing the clinic's Lerner College of Medicine. Until last December, Topol held the titles of chief academic officer and provost. Those positions were eliminated, but he remained chairman of cardiology at perhaps the best-regarded heart hospital in the U.S. In a Dec.17 report, The New York Times wrote that Topol had been put on a form of probation. The Times said that he had been given a six-month contract rather than the usual yearlong agreement, citing associates (#msg-8919011).
The elimination of those academic positions occurred shortly after a deposition of Topol was played at the first trial in the case brought by the widow of Richard "Dicky" Irvin. Her lawyers argue that Vioxx caused Irwin's heart-attack death. That case ended in a deadlock and is being retried in New Orleans. Topol's deposition is expected to be heard soon by the current jury.
Topol's deposition previously made news partly because in it he recounts a story he heard from a colleague that Raymond Gilmartin, the chairman and chief executive of Merck, had made a call to A. Malachi Mixon, then chairman of the Cleveland Clinic, regarding Topol's comments about the safety of Vioxx. Merck denies those charges. Mixon has been deposed, according to people who have seen the document, but that deposition has not yet been used in court.
Topol is one of the country's most famous doctors. His studies helped establish the usefulness of Plavix, the $3 billion blood thinner from Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and tPA, a clot buster that was one of the first drugs to come out of Genentech. Thomson Scientific recently said that he was one of the ten most cited researchers of the last decade, with his papers referenced a whopping 22,829 times through August 2005.
Although he was not the first or only doctor to raise concerns about Vioxx, Topol was perhaps one of the most eloquent in explaining those concerns to the public--as in a much-watched report on 60 Minutes. A paper he co-authored in 2001 with Steven Nissen, the Cleveland Clinic's vice chairman of cardiology, raised concerns that Vioxx and Pfizer's rival drug Celebrex might increase the risk of heart attack by re-analyzing Merck and Pfizer's own studies. Since that paper was authored, Topol has become one of the most prominent advocates of drug safety in the U.S.
The Cleveland Clinic is examining conflicts of interest at the institution and has just received a preliminary report from McDermott, Will & Emory, a Chicago law firm. The report found some "inattention" to conflicts of interest.
Topol has not been the only doctor pulled into the Vioxx legal proceedings. Gregory Curfman, a professor at Harvard who is also an editor at The New England Journal of Medicine, was deposed by plaintiff's lawyers. The deposition helped lead NEJM to issue an "expression of concern" regarding Merck's biggest study of Vioxx, called VIGOR.
Claire Bombardier of the University of Toronto, VIGOR's lead author, says that a response was sent on Monday, Jan. 16. Karen Pedersen, a spokeswoman for NEJM, said in an e-mail that the matter was a "priority." <<
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