Last month, Crikey reported that the University of Queensland had come down hard on an academic, Dr Andrew Gunn, for raising questions in public about the Gardasil vaccine, which earns the university a mint.

After receiving a complaint from the pharmaceutical company CSL Ltd about Dr Gunn’s comments on radio, the University’s Secretary and Registrar, Douglas Porter, asked Gunn to provide a written apology to CSL stating that the “comments were made by you in your personal capacity and were not endorsed or authorised by the University”. Porter also asked to be sent a copy of Gunn’s letter.

Viewers of last night’s 7.30 Report could be forgiven for assuming that the University had backed down on this heavy-handed approach which – as I have previously reported in the British Medical Journal – had drawn strong criticism from academics in Australia and overseas.

Its statement to the program said: “The University acknowledges that its action in writing to Dr Gunn may have been disproportionate to the circumstances. If Dr Gunn does not agree that an apology is appropriate, then the University will not pursue the issue. In order to avoid similar situations in the future, the University is considering a process to clarify the circumstances in which honorary academic titles may be used.”

It’s that last sentence which suggests the University still has not found the gumption to really come clean on its handling of this issue. It seems the hierarchy is now trying to frame this as an issue about the role of adjunct appointees – Gunn holds an adjunct position as Senior Lecturer in General Practice.

It’s interesting that when I rang Douglas Porter for his comment on this story several weeks ago, he didn’t mention the issue of adjunct appointments. First, he argued that people who heard Gunn on the radio would have assumed he was speaking on behalf of the University. I questioned that argument as in my experience, as someone who regularly interviews academics, they generally are commenting on issues related to their professional expertise, rather than as university spokespeople.

Porter then questioned Gunn’s authority to speak on issues related to Gardasil because he was not an immunologist. That struck me as an even limper argument, given the role that GPs play in administering vaccines.

It’s worth noting again the comment in the BMJ from the University’s Executive Dean of Health Sciences, Professor Peter Brooks, who said universities generally needed to do a better job of resolving conflicts of interest. “If you’ve got very large amounts of money changing hands, then it’s very difficult, I think, not to let that influence you to some extent,” he said. “It’s a dilemma that universities have.”

“Quite frankly, I have said that I think that if anybody at UQ makes a statement about Gardasil, including the inventors, if it’s going to be a public statement, then probably under conflict of interest, they should acknowledge that the university receives significant funding from CSL each year.”

Who knows what is going on behind closed doors at the University – perhaps the powers-that-be really are trying to get a better grip on how to manage conflicts of interest in the increasingly commercial world of university research.

But the University’s latest public statement gives no indication that it is genuinely grappling with this difficult but important issue. To attempt to put the focus on the role of adjunct appointees is just a distraction from the main game. In any case, in my experience, universities generally welcome adjunct appointees using their academic titles in public debate as it’s seen as part of their role, as well as being good for university profile.

And the University’s attempt to blame the media for misrepresenting the story – as I’ve seen the vice-chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield do in one letter to a concerned medical group – only reinforces my concerns that the University is still trying to dodge the central issue at stake in this case.

Here’s some free advice from crisis management 101: when you’ve made a mistake, the worst thing you can do is to prevaricate and try to shift the blame. Say sorry. Mean it. And then put your house in order.

Melissa Sweet holds two adjunct appointments – at the University of Sydney and the University of Notre Dame, Sydney campus. She has never been asked not to use these titles when engaging in public debate.

Links to documents providing more background to this case are available in the original Crikey story.