Dr. Nancy Olivieri has been at it for more than five years, and she has no intention of giving up. Back in 1997 Olivieri was fired—then rehired after a long fight—for disclosing information about possible side-effects of a drug she was studying for the Apotex drug corporation. It started a long battle with U of T’s administration and its affiliated hospitals, which Olivieri says fail to protect the academic freedom of researchers working there.

“These guys don’t get one thing—we’re not going away. This isn’t a personal vendetta. This is something I want patients to be protected from when I’m dead, fifty years from now,” said Olivieri.

After she went public, Apotex terminated her trials and is now suing her. They hold that there was a scientific disagreement, stating in legal warnings that Olivieri couldn’t release her findings because they “could not allow such information to be transmitted to patients.”

President Robert Birgeneau consented to talk to the Varsity about the matter only over email.

“There is a legitimate scientific debate about the safety and efficacy of deferiprone,” he said of the drug Olivieri was researching. “Universities should foster such debate.”

Olivieri has said the drug would have been much more difficult to license in Europe had the university and the hospital stood behind her. She says this would also have affected the drug’s use in developing countries, where its affordability and accessibility might result in high use.

Birgeneau’s response to this accusation was only “see my answer to the previous question.”

As for the secrecy clause, Birgeneau pointed to a new harmonization accord between U of T and its hospitals, signed in March.

“This accord prohibits such secrecy clauses,” he said. “The university does not permit them in its research contracts and the hospitals have agreed to do the same.”

But Olivieri said she went to the university in May 2001 with a contract from an unnamed drug company that was “even more restrictive” than the one with Apotex, asking her to sign a non-disclosure agreement that allowed them to have discretion for up to two years.

She says the hospital told her to sign the contract, which shocked her in light of previous problems with Apotex, adding that the university didn’t help her when she raised the matter with them.

Olivieri’s case has recently been bolstered by a two-year study conducted by three established doctors, recommending many changes at U of T.

“I guess what Birgeneau needs to understand is that this is a document that is irrefutable, completely fair, and has been laboriously referenced and cross referenced,” she said of the report, co-published by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. If he ignores it, she said “the world will understand the University of Toronto as someone that ignores completely, pleas for academic freedom.”

U of T did not participate in the inquiry, and Birgeneau says the matter is over with.

“The events have been thoroughly investigated and dealt with by the university in the past. Some of the matters are subject to ongoing litigation and grievances. I am hopeful that we will be able to resolve these matters through mediation,” he said.

He adds that he agrees with Oliveri’s assertion that with rewards come responsibilites.

“[If] you’re going to be president of the largest Canadian university, then you have to make some hard decisions, and some of that is to say ‘I represent the public, I don’t represent private companies and I need to make rules,’ ” he said

But Olivieri pointed to the university’s recent acceptance of an Apotex donation that will fund the pharmacy building.

“What company won’t Birgeneau deal with? …What line in the sand will he draw?”