Former University of Chicago transplant surgeon Yolanda T. Becker, MD, has resigned from a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine panel after accepting a new position, according to The Washington Post.
Dr. Becker resigned Sept. 15 from a panel on transplant reform after accepting a position with Transplant Solutions, a for-profit consulting firm based in Phoenix, Dana Korsen, a spokesperson for the National Academies, confirmed to Becker's.
Her resignation comes amid recent media inquiries about conflicts of interest at the National Academies, a private, nonprofit tasked with providing independent, objective advice to the federal government.
On Aug. 12, Kaiser Health News reported that one committee member on a panel looking into the cost of drug waste was paid $1.4 million to serve on the board of a pharmaceutical corporation in 2019 and joined the board of a biotechnology company the following year. KHN also reported that another member of the panel accepted consulting income from 11 to 13 pharmaceutical companies, and that the National Academy of Sciences had received money from major drugmakers.
Ms. Korsen, with the National Academies, told KHN the two members had "no current conflicts of interest during the time the [drug waste] study was being conducted" from January 2020 through February, and that the report in question was paid for by federal officials.
In a statement shared with Becker's, Ms. Korsen said the National Academies "recently became aware of Dr. Becker's relationship with Transplant Solutions, and subsequently she resigned from the committee."
Ms. Korsen told the Post the National Academies new conflict of interest disclosure policy, which went into effect in September, "requires disclosure of relevant relationships within the past five years."
Dr. Becker, who recently retired from the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was a professor, did not respond to an email request for comment from the Post about her relationship with Transplant Solutions. Transplant Solutions announced that Dr. Becker was joining the organization in an Aug. 17 Facebook post.
Read the full Post story here.