Spring Break
A story worth telling
Alumnus and Prof. Alison Bass' (AMST) new book describes her revolutionary findings on corrupt pharmaceutical companies
by Casey Nilsson
Features | 10/7/08
Posted online at 2:50 AM EST on 10/7/08
/ Last updated at 9:28 PM EST on 10/7/08
A new version of this story has been posted due to several factual errors. The Justice regrets the errors.
"To be a journalist," says Alison Bass (AMST), "you've got to have thick skin."
Bass' first book, Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and A Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, published in June, details her in-depth investigation of corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. The book marks the continuation of a diverse journalistic career that Bass launched writing theater reviews for the Justice while a Brandeis student.
Side Effects follows the lives of Rose Firestein, the lead attorney in the New York State attorney general's lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, and Donna Howard, former assistant administrator in the department of psychiatry at Brown University. The two women exposed years of corruption and deception at GlaxoSmithKline, the company that manufactures Paxil, an anti-depressant prescribed to children and adults across the United States.
Bass describes the unlikely series of events that led her to unearth a history of corrupt practices at GlaxoSmithKline. While a medical and mental health staff writer for the Boston Globe during the 1990s, Bass would periodically receive tips from people wanting to report unethical medical practices.
"I first made the acquaintance with Donna Howard when she came forward as an anonymous source," Bass says.
"She came forward later, on the record, and told me about what was going on with Martin Keller, [chief of psychiatry] at Brown University, who was collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars coming from the state mental health agency for research that wasn't being conducted."
Not only was Keller collecting an enormous amount of money, he was also submitting data that made Paxil "look safer and more effective than it really was."
Still, Bass admits that it was several years before she recognized the import of Howard's complaint. In 2004, after she'd already left the Boston Globe, Bass read about the New York State attorney general's lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline.
"The New York State attorney general's Office basically sued GlaxoSmithKline for deceiving doctors and consumers about the safety and effectiveness of Paxil," Bass explains, "and as it turns out one of the studies that was in the lawsuit was the study that Martin Keller had done back in the '90s that Donna Howard had told me about."
Intrigued by the courageous efforts of Howard and Firestein, Bass realized, "'Wow! There are two remarkable women in this story, … and this would make a great book.' So I started doing the research then."
Although she'd been interested in journalism since she was a student at Brandeis, Bass only became curious about the specific fields of medical and mental health journalism after reading Daniel Keyes' The Minds of Billy Mulligan, a book about a young man with multiple personality disorder who suffered extensive abuse as a child.
The book, Bass says, "opened my eyes to what child abuse can do to a brain, to a person's mind."
Throughout the course of her career at the Boston Globe, Bass often received tips similar to Howard's that prompted her investigations into the fields of science and medicine.
Her investigative series on psychiatrists who sexually abused their patients, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1993, was inspired by a tip she received from a woman claiming to have been sexually abused by her psychiatrist.
"Here was a woman, a cancer patient, who was going to a psychiatrist to deal with the emotional [consequences] of being diagnosed with cancer," Bass explains, "and her psychiatrist said that sex would be good for her, it would be part of her treatment, which was totally, horribly exploitative."
Upon looking into the woman's complaint, Bass discovered that this particular psychiatrist was having sex with several patients and that a surprising number of psychiatrists were guilty of some form of sexual abuse.
Bass has also written a number of investigative pieces that have shed light on social issues including spousal abuse and murder.
Her Boston Globe article on divorce and marital communication styles marked some of the first research into the topic of nonphysical marital conflict.
"It used to be conventional wisdom that if you fought a lot with your husband, then that made a bad marriage and that would lead to divorce," Bass explains.
Her investigations, however, led her to discover that "sometimes people who didn't fight at all or didn't communicate at all-that did hurt their marriage."
Bass also published a Boston Globe column that discussed the reasons why men are more likely than women to murder their spouses. The investigation began when "a man named Charles Stuart had killed his pregnant wife and tried to blame it on an African-American man, and it turned out that [Stuart] had done it," Bass explains.
Ultimately, Bass discovered a fundamental difference between the ways men and women cope with anger.
"When men are angry and have been abused, like many of these serial killers have, they turn their rage outward and kill women," Bass says, "while women, when they are abused, turn their rage inward. And they tend to hurt themselves; they self-mutilate and try to kill themselves."
Although she's now a hardened investigative journalist, Bass was a bit hesitant in her initial approach to journalism.
"I was going to be an actress [when I entered Brandeis]," Bass recalls, "and so I majored in theater my freshman and sophomore year and started doing theater reviews for the Justice."
Eventually, after she began writing News and Features articles, Bass realized she wanted to become a journalist and switched her major to English.
"Working for the Justice helped cement my interest in journalism," Bass confirms.
While a Brandeis student, Bass spent her summers interning for the Daily Spirit, a local paper in her hometown of Philadelphia. After graduation, she worked for a number of publications, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review, and worked as a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice and Psychology Today.
For the past four years, Bass has taught journalism courses in the American Studies department at Brandeis; she is also a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at Mount Holyoke University. This year, she is teaching "Digital and Multimedia Journalism and Health and Science Journalism" at Brandeis, in addition to "Introduction to Journalism," "Digital and Multimedia Journalism" and "Health and Science Journalism" at Mount Holyoke.
Students appreciate that Bass is able to supplement the curriculum with insights from her journalistic experience.
Jenna Berger '09 says she particularly enjoys Bass' "personal anecdotes" and views on how contemporary journalists are adapting to technology.
For Bradley Stern '10, it's helpful to receive a professional opinion on creating blogs from someone with such an extensive journalistic background.
Since her days as a Brandeis student during "the end of the hippie generation and the beginning of the apathetic generation," Bass says it seems that today's student body is more intelligent and diverse than she remembers.
Bass' professorship affords her insight she didn't have while a Brandeis student. When asked what she realizes now as a professor that she didn't as a student, Bass responds, "The teachers are really on your side. They want you to succeed."
Editor's note: Jenna Berger '09 is a staff writer for Arts.
"To be a journalist," says Alison Bass (AMST), "you've got to have thick skin."
Bass' first book, Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower, and A Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, published in June, details her in-depth investigation of corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. The book marks the continuation of a diverse journalistic career that Bass launched writing theater reviews for the Justice while a Brandeis student.
Side Effects follows the lives of Rose Firestein, the lead attorney in the New York State attorney general's lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, and Donna Howard, former assistant administrator in the department of psychiatry at Brown University. The two women exposed years of corruption and deception at GlaxoSmithKline, the company that manufactures Paxil, an anti-depressant prescribed to children and adults across the United States.
Bass describes the unlikely series of events that led her to unearth a history of corrupt practices at GlaxoSmithKline. While a medical and mental health staff writer for the Boston Globe during the 1990s, Bass would periodically receive tips from people wanting to report unethical medical practices.
"I first made the acquaintance with Donna Howard when she came forward as an anonymous source," Bass says.
"She came forward later, on the record, and told me about what was going on with Martin Keller, [chief of psychiatry] at Brown University, who was collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars coming from the state mental health agency for research that wasn't being conducted."
Not only was Keller collecting an enormous amount of money, he was also submitting data that made Paxil "look safer and more effective than it really was."
Still, Bass admits that it was several years before she recognized the import of Howard's complaint. In 2004, after she'd already left the Boston Globe, Bass read about the New York State attorney general's lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline.
"The New York State attorney general's Office basically sued GlaxoSmithKline for deceiving doctors and consumers about the safety and effectiveness of Paxil," Bass explains, "and as it turns out one of the studies that was in the lawsuit was the study that Martin Keller had done back in the '90s that Donna Howard had told me about."
Intrigued by the courageous efforts of Howard and Firestein, Bass realized, "'Wow! There are two remarkable women in this story, … and this would make a great book.' So I started doing the research then."
Although she'd been interested in journalism since she was a student at Brandeis, Bass only became curious about the specific fields of medical and mental health journalism after reading Daniel Keyes' The Minds of Billy Mulligan, a book about a young man with multiple personality disorder who suffered extensive abuse as a child.
The book, Bass says, "opened my eyes to what child abuse can do to a brain, to a person's mind."
Throughout the course of her career at the Boston Globe, Bass often received tips similar to Howard's that prompted her investigations into the fields of science and medicine.
Her investigative series on psychiatrists who sexually abused their patients, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1993, was inspired by a tip she received from a woman claiming to have been sexually abused by her psychiatrist.
"Here was a woman, a cancer patient, who was going to a psychiatrist to deal with the emotional [consequences] of being diagnosed with cancer," Bass explains, "and her psychiatrist said that sex would be good for her, it would be part of her treatment, which was totally, horribly exploitative."
Upon looking into the woman's complaint, Bass discovered that this particular psychiatrist was having sex with several patients and that a surprising number of psychiatrists were guilty of some form of sexual abuse.
Bass has also written a number of investigative pieces that have shed light on social issues including spousal abuse and murder.
Her Boston Globe article on divorce and marital communication styles marked some of the first research into the topic of nonphysical marital conflict.
"It used to be conventional wisdom that if you fought a lot with your husband, then that made a bad marriage and that would lead to divorce," Bass explains.
Her investigations, however, led her to discover that "sometimes people who didn't fight at all or didn't communicate at all-that did hurt their marriage."
Bass also published a Boston Globe column that discussed the reasons why men are more likely than women to murder their spouses. The investigation began when "a man named Charles Stuart had killed his pregnant wife and tried to blame it on an African-American man, and it turned out that [Stuart] had done it," Bass explains.
Ultimately, Bass discovered a fundamental difference between the ways men and women cope with anger.
"When men are angry and have been abused, like many of these serial killers have, they turn their rage outward and kill women," Bass says, "while women, when they are abused, turn their rage inward. And they tend to hurt themselves; they self-mutilate and try to kill themselves."
Although she's now a hardened investigative journalist, Bass was a bit hesitant in her initial approach to journalism.
"I was going to be an actress [when I entered Brandeis]," Bass recalls, "and so I majored in theater my freshman and sophomore year and started doing theater reviews for the Justice."
Eventually, after she began writing News and Features articles, Bass realized she wanted to become a journalist and switched her major to English.
"Working for the Justice helped cement my interest in journalism," Bass confirms.
While a Brandeis student, Bass spent her summers interning for the Daily Spirit, a local paper in her hometown of Philadelphia. After graduation, she worked for a number of publications, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review, and worked as a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice and Psychology Today.
For the past four years, Bass has taught journalism courses in the American Studies department at Brandeis; she is also a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at Mount Holyoke University. This year, she is teaching "Digital and Multimedia Journalism and Health and Science Journalism" at Brandeis, in addition to "Introduction to Journalism," "Digital and Multimedia Journalism" and "Health and Science Journalism" at Mount Holyoke.
Students appreciate that Bass is able to supplement the curriculum with insights from her journalistic experience.
Jenna Berger '09 says she particularly enjoys Bass' "personal anecdotes" and views on how contemporary journalists are adapting to technology.
For Bradley Stern '10, it's helpful to receive a professional opinion on creating blogs from someone with such an extensive journalistic background.
Since her days as a Brandeis student during "the end of the hippie generation and the beginning of the apathetic generation," Bass says it seems that today's student body is more intelligent and diverse than she remembers.
Bass' professorship affords her insight she didn't have while a Brandeis student. When asked what she realizes now as a professor that she didn't as a student, Bass responds, "The teachers are really on your side. They want you to succeed."
Editor's note: Jenna Berger '09 is a staff writer for Arts.
Be the first to comment on this story