In the December Bulletin Professor Claude Daley complains that, "Under the guise of protecting academic freedom, it (the Olivieri Report) will make contractual agreements with businesses more difficult." He continues, "My ability to enter freely into legal arrangements with potential sponsors will be compromised, resulting in a loss of my real academic freedom."

Those statements appear to disregard the fact that academic freedom does not license academics to do or say anything they please. Academic freedom does not justify such unlawful acts as defamation, fraud, misrepresentation, or inciting racial hatred. Further, academic freedom must be used in accordance with scholarly obligation to base research on an honest search for knowledge. It is not clear that Professor Daley acknowledges such constraints on academic freedom.

Professor Daley criticizes the report as an attempt to justify Dr. Olivieri's "bull-headed behaviour" causing her to disregard her legal obligations to colleagues and Apotex. A careful reading of the report makes it clear that, in exercising her professional judgment and academic freedom, Dr. Olivieri fulfilled all her ethical and legal obligations to the Research Ethics Board, the Health Protection Branch, the physicians responsible for the clinical care of the patients in the LA-03 trial, the ethics committees of the two hospitals in which the LA-03 patients received their clinical care, and Apotex.

While Apotex threatened legal action for Dr. Olivieri's informing patients (and those mentioned above), of enhanced risks associated with the drug, the contract respecting the LA-03 trial contained no confidentiality clause. Even if it had contained such a clause (as did the contract for the LA-01 trial), it is virtually certain it would have been void if it purported to prevent informing patients of new risks associated with treatment. That is the legal opinion to the committee of Professor Emeritus Daniel A. Soberman.

Professor Daley asks: "Does CAUT actually care about academic freedom?" A clue lies in CAUT's role in commissioning the eminent, independent committee of inquiry that produced a report of such thoroughness and integrity. Furthermore, CAUT and the University of Toronto Faculty Association, were the only organizations that took effective action to uphold the academic freedom of Dr. Olivieri and her colleagues.

Professor Daley suggests ". . . CAUT, like many academics, distrusts business." It is possible that, like me, they do trust that, in their growing "partnerships" with universities large corporations will continue to do what they do best — generate profits for the shareholders. If their bottom line is hindered by academic freedom and informing the public of risks associated with their profit-making activities, the lessons learned from Apotex, Ford Pinto, Johns Manville, the tobacco industry, the Kerr-McGee Corporation, and so on, convey no doubt that CAUT, member associations, and academic staff will have to go to extraordinary lengths and expense to protect academic freedom and the public interest residing therein.

The Academic Freedom Fund established by CAUT Council demonstrates commitment to academic freedom, sadly missing in Professor Daley's letter.

Ian B. McKenna
Management, University of Lethbridge
Chair, CAUT Academic Freedom & Tenure Committee