Marc Rodwin, Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow and Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School, presented his research at the Lab seminar on December 7. His presentation, “Reforming Pharmaceutical Policy and the Pharmaceutical Industry: Some Modest Proposals,” outlined some of the major issues within the pharmaceutical industry, and suggested some possible reforms.

In their discussion, seminar participants particularly focused on three areas of potential reform: pharma funding and control of clinical trials used in new drug applications to the FDA; lack of information and funding for...

The first Edmond J. Safra Lab seminar of the 2011-12 academic year was led by Professor Lawrence Lessig. Participants discussed a chapter from Lessig’s book, “Republic, Lost”, and debated the distinctions between the degrees of influence that should (or should not) be of concern when considering the problem of institutional corruption.

Lessig opened the seminar with a brief description of “dependence” corruption as a subset of institutional corruption. Dependence corruption results from a general influence, which weakens the effectiveness of an institution, while also weakening...

The final Lab seminar of the spring semester was presented by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow, Susannah Rose, on May 14, 2014. Rose received her PhD from Harvard’s Health Policy Program in 2010 and is now a Professional Staff Member in the Department of Bioethics at The Cleveland Clinic and an Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University, Department of Medicine. Her research currently focuses on investigating potential financial conflicts of interest among patient...

The May 7, 2014, Lab seminar was presented by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow and investigative journalist, Sheila Kaplan. Kaplan is currently producing a 4-part documentary series, titled: “America: COMPROMISED.” The documentary, which is scheduled to debut on PBS in the fall of 2015, will probe cases of institutional corruption as they arise in the pharmaceutical industry, academia, food corporations, and the financial sector. For the first part of the Lab seminar, Kaplan...

The October 30, 2013 Lab Seminar, “Integrity, Trust, Political Economy, and Public-Private Partnerships,” was led by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellows Jonathan Marks and William English. Marks is Associate Professor of Bioethics, Humanities and Law and Director of the Bioethics Program at Pennsylvania State University. His work focuses on the...

The February 22 Lab Seminar was led by Brandi Newell and Alek Chakroff. Both Newell and Chakroff are Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellows, and PhD candidates in the Harvard Psychology Department, and their research examines issues of institutional corruption in academic research. While much of the research on institutional...

The March 7 Lab Seminar was led by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow Carl Elliott. Elliott is a Professor in the Center for Bioethics, the Department of Pediatrics, and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. His current research deals with the exploitation of the homeless in clinical trials--specifically Phase 1 trials, which are done to determine the safety of a drug (not its efficacy).  

Elliott opened the seminar by providing...

The April 18 Lab Seminar was led by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow Sheila Kaplan. Kaplan is a journalist whose project examines the issue of institutional corruption in the the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

Kaplan opened the seminar by describing the factors that contribute to EPA mission distortion and regulatory capture. One factor is the influence of industry and its lobbyists, which last year spent $886 million on lobbying, and $290...

William English, Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow, presented his research at the February 29th meeting of the Lab Seminar. English opened with a discussion of his first project, which aims to develop a conceptual framework for thinking about problems of corruption, and then went on to suggest some ways in which problems of corruption arise and how they might be resolved.  

Introducing his first project, English noted that when studying institutional corruption,...

The first Lab Seminar of the 2012 Spring Semester was led by Jennifer Bussell, Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow and Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Her research attempts to measure the scale and scope of corruption in India, a federalist country with 28 states that vary dramatically in their levels of corruption. 

Bussell opened the seminar by providing some institutional context...

Yuval Feldman, Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow and Professor of Law at Bar Ilan University, presented his research at the February 15 Lab Seminar. Feldman’s research attempts to understand how individuals interpret laws that are ambiguous or unclear. 

Feldman pointed out that one of the easiest ways for “good” people to do “bad” things is to legitimize their actions by believing that their behavior is within the boundaries of the...

The March 10, 2014, seminar presentation was led by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow, Dieter Zinnbauer. A Program Manager for the International Secretariat of Transparency International in Berlin, Zinnbauer works on emerging policy issues and innovation. Prior to his current assignment, Zinnbauer served as the Chief Editor of Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report. During his fellowship year, Zinnbauer has focused his research on exploring possibilities to...

The April 23, 2014, Lab seminar was presented by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow, Talia Fisher. Fisher is Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University and a member of the Young Academia of Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Her primary research interests include the private supply of legal institutions and probabilistic applications in procedural law. During her fellowship year, Fisher had originally set out to research the potentially distorting effects of money and of...

The March 12, 2014, Lab seminar was led by Edmond J. Safra Lab Fellow, Jennifer E. Miller. During her second fellowship year, Miller has continued to explore the possibility of addressing prominent ethical concerns and trust gaps in the pharmaceutical industry through a number of reform strategies, particularly policy amendments and a third party rating system. Her seminar presentation, titled, “Bioethical Standards for the Pharmaceutical Industry? Concerns & a...