The case of Dan Markingson was the one that plunged bioethicist Carl Elliott, MD, PhD, of the University of Minnesota (UMN), into whistleblowing.
In November 2003, 26-year-old Markingson was involuntarily committed to Fairview Hospital after UMN psychiatrist Stephen Olson, MD, determined he was psychotic, dangerous, and incompetent to make medical decisions.
But not long after, Olson recommended a stay-of-commitment, which meant Markingson would be released if he followed his doctors' orders.
Olson asked Markingson to sign up for a drug trial, sponsored by AstraZeneca, evaluating three atypical antipsychotics for patients experiencing their first psychotic break, Elliott said.
Markingson was eventually transferred to a halfway house, but his mother, Mary Weiss, continued to raise concerns about his state of mind over the next several months.
In May 2004, Markingson stabbed himself multiple times in the shower and died. It turned out he'd been on quetiapine (Seroquel) at the time.
The study pulled in some $327,000 for the university, and Olson and a co-investigator were paid consultants to AstraZeneca -- as was the head of the institutional review board at UMN that approved the study, Elliott noted.
Elliott relayed the story at a virtual seminar on whistleblowing Wednesday afternoon hosted by the Health and the Public Interest program at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He spoke about how the case...
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