The 1990s was a heady time for the pharmaceutical industry, which had just embarked on what would become known as the Statin Wars. And James Stein, an up-and-coming heart doctor, was ripe to be hooked as a drug company speaker.
Stein, now a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, was a 29-year-old cardiology fellow in Chicago in 1994 when his faculty mentor asked him to fill in for him at a drug company-funded lecture to a large group of doctors.