The Boardman Incident

When Dr. Cecelia Boardman, a gynecologic oncologist at Virginia Commonwealth University's Massey Cancer Center, made statements before the Viginia General Assembly regarding the efficacy of the new Merck vaccine to prevent HPV infection, she apparently failed to disclose her financial relationship with Merck (per the newspaper article, she has given "educational talks" to physicians on the new vaccine). While she "didn't violate any disclosure requirement governing witnesses who give input to lawmaking committees" and no one, apparently, questions her credentials, she still ends up in the headlines. From the article:

"I'm most distressed and most apologetic and most concerned that there is any perception of my being dishonest or untruthful," Boardman said. "I have done a lot of public speaking on cervical cancer and cervical cancer prevention in my professional roles. In my mind, I did not feel any conflict in the testimony I provided."

She said she did not participate in Gardasil research and that she independently evaluated the drug's performance before coming to her conclusion that it works.

"If I thought the data was crummy, I'd say the data was crummy," she said.

Click here to read the entire article. I'd like to know if these "educational talks" were promotional or CME-certified presentations, one can never really tell from these news articles.