Pharmaceutical companies manipulate research? Colour me surprised

Where have we seen this before?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080426.DRUGS26/TPStory/?query=merck

The tobacco industry.

The oil industry.

And maybe the worst of the lot, pharmaceutical companies.

It's simple. Get your in-house people to write a promotional review of the drug in question.

Then, find out some doctor who will lend their name to the article and send it out under said doctor's name.

The profession of medicine, in every aspect - clinical, education and research - has been inundated with profound influence from the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries," Dr. DeAngelis and Phil Fontanarosa, JAMA's executive deputy editor, wrote in an editorial that accompanied the two studies. "This has occurred because physicians have allowed it to happen and it's time to stop."

The editorial calls on the editors of other leading journals to embrace reforms that, Dr. DeAngelis believes, will prevent ghost authorships, expose conflicts of interest and guarantee the integrity of medical science.

"What she [Dr. DeAngelis] recognizes," said Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba, "is that all of modern medicine is floating on a sea of drug company money and the result has been utterly corrosive."

Yeah, put the invisible hand in charge of the health care system.

Corrupt as a banana republlic.

 

Anyone that doesn't research what they put into their body is asking for trouble.

 

Fuck the FDA and drug research.
A drug in liquid, injectable form is approved by the FDA and covered by my insurance.
Same drug in powder/pill form (the form the doctor prescribes) is not approved by the FDA so it's not covered by my insurance, despite the fact its been prescribed and available in drug stores for decades, costing $100 per bottle (of 100 pills)

 

These buzzards are always around hospitals ... and not surprisingly, they're not welcome.

The pair of hospitals around here are pretty aware of this, too. Thank goodness ...

 

I prefer the GAP.

But yeah, it's stuff like this that just constantly pisses me off about the industry.

 

Translation: "Yeah, we know there are problems with this drug, but we need more conclusive evidence. So we'll give it our OK until we have created a few suicidals more research.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2008/NEW01788.html