Remember when Robert Jarvik was a scientist and not a shill?

He put Utah on the map by inventing a usable artificial heart (the patient had to drag around a support unit the size of a golf cart, but that's life with a robot ticker).

It kept Barney Clark alive for three months and catapulted Jarvik to fame. Besides interviews in half the magazines and newspapers on the planet, he married certified genius and Parade magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant.

Now, an older wiser Jarvik is a household face on Lipitor commercials.

That may end.

The U. S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce wants to know what Jarvik's qualifications are to pitch pills. Though Jarvik is an M.D, he never got his license to practice medicine.

“In the ads, Dr. Jarvik appears to be giving medical advice, but apparently, he has never obtained a license to practice or prescribe medicine,” John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the committee, said in a press release.


The committee said today that "it is investigating the use of celebrity endorsements in marketing prescription drugs directly to consumers. And Jarvik is Celebrity No. 1 on the list," according to the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog.

NBC’s Robert Bazell has reported Jarvik doesn’t have “the strongest credentials.” His grades at Syracuse University weren’t good enough to get into a U.S. med school, so Bob went to the University of Bologna in Italy for a couple years. In 1976, he graduated from the UofU med school, but he never did an internship or practiced.