Health Minister Lapinski denies conflict of interest over MD Pharma

Yesterday, Health Minister Mariusz Lapinski issued a statement on his relations with pharmaceutical company MD Pharma. "I'm neither president nor a shareholder of the company," he wrote. Private radio station RMF said on Tuesday that while Lapinski worked as director of the Central Clinical Hospital (CSK) in Warsaw, he was owner and president of MD Pharma. The Minister did not deny the information but said that the company ceased its operations in the middle of 1998 and he was appointed director of the hospital in February 2000. His spokesperson declined to say whether MD Pharma was the sole firm in which Lapinski held some shares. "It is a question for the minister himself," she said. Lapinski said that in the middle of October 2001 he sold his shares in MD Pharma to Miroslaw Betlejewski who, since the end of 2001, has been employed by a Health Ministry institution. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A4) A.Z.