http://www.newstarget.com/z012119.html
The truth about medical journals, and how drug companies exert heavy
influence over published scientific articles
Can the medical journals be trusted to provide accurate, unbiased
information about medicine even as they are almost entirely funded by drug
companies? In her book, Vaccination, Peggy O'Mara writes that the current
era of medical beliefs (or dogma) began to develop soon after Louis
Pasteur's demonstration that some pathogens could be converted into
vaccines. The medical community then decided to try the same method for
all
afflictions. Medical journals were soon afterward reporting the discovery
of
"miracle" vaccines for every disease under the sun, and drug companies
were
simultaneously advertising those vaccines on those very same pages.
Medical journals rely on Big Pharma's ads to pay the bills
Mainstream media has long depended on advertising revenue to cover its
bills. The money generated by newspaper subscriptions doesn't even begin
to
scratch the surface of a daily paper's running costs. Television stations
also rely on advertising clients to foot the bill for everyday operations.
And of course it is no surprise that medical companies are only too happy
to
shell out some bucks in advertising to make their product a household
name.
The big difference in medical journals is that readers are hardly likely
to
see a non-medical ad within its pages.
On television, a plethora of commercials offer products ranging from dog
food to cosmetics to medicine. In newspapers, the ads often run the gamut
of
available products and local services. Medical journals, though, have a
specific kind of advertising content within their pages. All their ads are
for hospitals or drugs; there's not a non-medical ad in sight.
Since medicine is the subject of the entire journal, medical ads seem par
for the course. But what should an editor do if a product advertised on a
particular page isn't 100 percent safe? It might not be cost-effective for
a
budget-strapped medical journal to remove the ad and publish an article
discussing the product's drawbacks. They run the risk of angering the
pharmaceutical company and losing revenue. Donald M. Epstein, author of
Healing Myths, adds that even if the dangers of a drug or medical
procedure
were to be included in a respected medical journal, often the "religious"
belief that doctors, and even patients, have in conventional medicine
overrides their decision-making process.
People believe that if a drug is FDA-approved and on the market, it must
be
okay. If a drug proves fatal to 10 or even 10,000 patients, doctors will
still staunchly defend it, claiming the benefits outweigh the risks.
Epstein's feelings are that anyone with a little common sense should be
enraged by the fact that the entire industry is operating with
self-imposed
blinders -- from the pharmaceutical companies that hawk unsafe drugs to
the
medical journals that publish doctored clinical studies and misleading
ads.
What really makes the controversy interesting for many folks is this: If
the
journals were ever to publish a study that finds a procedure within a
different healing art -- such as herbal or chiropractic medicine -- to be
harmful or fatal to patients, there would be a loud and obvious call to
outlaw or regulate that practice. Only Big Pharma and the Western health
care system are allowed to operate with obvious dangers (like the Vioxx
drug
killing more Americans than the entire Vietnam War) and get away with it.
A
further frustration for Epstein is that drugs and procedures proven to be
unsafe or ineffective do not deter the medical community from developing
new
treatments based on the old "biomedical story."
Consumers falsely trust medical journals to be impartial
Richard Smith, the ex-editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ),
publicly
criticized his former publication, saying the BMJ was too dependent on
advertising revenue to be considered impartial. Smith estimates that
between
two-thirds to three-quarters of the trials published in major journals --
Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association,
Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine -- are funded by the industry,
while about one-third of the trials published in the BMJ are thus funded.
He
further adds that trials are so valuable to drug companies that they will
often spend upwards of $1 million in reprint costs (which are additional
sources of major revenues for medical journals). Consumers trust medical
journals to be the impartial and "true" source of information concerning a
prescription drug, but few are privy to what is truly going on behind the
scenes at both drug trials and medical journals.
Scientists who conduct drug trials may be hard-pressed to stay impartial
when the manufacturers so often pay them for lectures and consultations,
or
when they are conducting research that has been funded by the company. In
addition, as stated by doctors Mark Hyman and Mark Liponis in
Ultraprevention, since drug companies are so reliant on the word of
doctors,
they often visit doctors' offices to hand out free samples, take the staff
out to lunch, offer free gifts -- including toys for kids, seminars at
expensive restaurants and junkets to the Caribbean islands -- and
frequently
sponsor continuing education for doctors.
According to Smith, BMJ editors want to be impartial most of the time, but
it is often impossible for editors to spot a rigged drug trial,
notwithstanding the "peer review" process theoretically used by drug
companies in order to have their research independently checked. Smith
said
that drug companies don't fiddle with the results of a trial, but they
obtain positive results by asking the "right" questions. Another pothole
mentioned by Smith was the choice a publisher might face to either publish
a
drug trial that would bring in $100,000 in profit, or lay off an employee
in
order to meet the end-of-year budget. The answer, according to Smith, is
to
have more publicly-funded trials, or have journals not publish them at
all.
Big Pharma's published studies lack transparency
Smith provided specific examples of wrongdoing, including the testing of a
new drug against a treatment already known to be inferior, using too high
or
too low of a dosage for a competing drug, testing on too small of a scale,
or choosing which results they want to make public. The Association of the
British Pharmaceutical Industry denied Smith's allegations, stating that
it
would not rig a trial due to the high risk of being "found out." Richard
Ley, a spokesman for the industry group, said that it was not within the
interests of the industry to make claims they know to be untrue, since the
cost of lawsuits far outweigh any potential income those claims might
generate. Ley also said that Smith's suggestion for more publicly-funded
trials was not realistic.
Fiona Godlee, current editor of the BMJ, did not debunk Smith's claims; in
fact, she agreed with much of what Smith said. "The BMJ takes the issues
of
transparency very seriously," she said. "We continue to call for public
registration of all clinical trials and full disclosure of results,
regardless of outcome." Godlee added that there was a need for more
transparency in the journal and that it was something they were working
on.
The difficulty, Godlee said, lies in having to tell a drug company to
"clean
up their act," while simultaneously relying on them for money. Godlee
added,
"What we need now is a debate about the issue."
In his book, On the Take, Dr. Jerome Kassirer says he is confident that,
for
the latter part of the 20th century, drug company ads had no influence on
the editorial content of the New England Journal of Medicine. But he also
adds that he is not sure the same could be said for other medical
journals.
He agrees with some of what Smith says, citing a negative study of the
pharmaceutical industry published in Annals of Internal Medicine, which
resulted in dramatically lower pharmaceutical advertising for the journal.
This decrease in advertising interest continued for many months. This is
an
example of why medical journal editors are, at best, afraid of
contradicting
their major source of income.
Misrepresenting drug trials is the "norm" in medical journals
The scandal in medical research is far more shocking than the corporate
scandals that recently created headlines, according to John Abramson in
Overdosed America. Abramson says that the withholding of negative results
and the misrepresentation of research are accepted norms in the field of
drug trials, or "commercially sponsored medical research."
He even goes as far as to say that there is a web of corporate influence
in
the form of "regulatory agencies, commercially sponsored medical
education,
brilliant advertising, expensive public relations campaigns, manipulation
of
free media coverage," as well as the aforementioned relationship between
trusted medical voices and the medical industry. In Abramson's view, this
all contributes to the silencing of the industry's corruption. He likens
the
situation to the recent corporate scandal in which securities analysts
received payments in order to write reports that drove up stock prices.
According to Ann Blake Tracy, PhD, author of PROZAC: Panacea or Pandora, a
"CBS HealthWatch" article even accused pharmaceutical companies of
authoring
drug studies themselves, then paying doctors to sign their names onto
them.
Furthermore, of the approximately 3,000 medical journals published
monthly,
only 10 percent are cross-indexed into a computer system, according to
Charles T. McGee, in his book, Heart Frauds. This cross-indexed material
is
closely reviewed by "conservative editorial boards" in order to screen out
controversial content. The 10 percent of material that's been approved is
the only material available to a doctor when he asks a medical librarian
to
conduct a computer search or a search of a CD-ROM service such as Medline.
On top of that is Kenny Ausubel's report, contained in his book, When
Healing Becomes a Crime, that many drug companies just cut out the
middle-man and publish their own medical journals.
Inexpensive herbal remedies never appear in medical journals
Theoretically, for much the same reason dog food ads are absent from their
pages, medical journals never contain advertising or studies about natural
or herbal remedies. Supposedly, they're not considered "in tune" with the
content of the journals. However, many nutritional experts and some
medical
doctors postulate that it's actually due to the low amount of revenue
generated by such remedies, since herbs are usually significantly less
expensive than over-the-counter and prescription drugs. This may be why
such
inexpensive treatments often seem to be dismissed offhand by medical
journal
editors.
McGee also writes about Dr. Richard Casdorph, who studied some old
experiments in chelation therapy (a procedure that uses ethylenediamine
tetra-acetic acid (EDTA) to remove metals from the body) and had success
with the treatment by using methods that were not available when the
initial
experiments were performed. In one case, Casdorph apparently saved two
patients from the amputation of their legs via chelation therapy. When he
tried to publish his study, many medical journals rejected it, stating
that
chelation therapy was found to be ineffective years before, and was
therefore inappropriate content for their publications. Presumably,
Casdorph
would have informed the editors that his study involved previously
undiscovered methods, in which case their reason for rejection would be a
non-sequitur. Casdorph eventually found a journal of alternative medicine
that agreed to publish his study.
Opponents of the perceived corruption in medical journals offer many
solutions. Smith, as mentioned previously, would either like more
privately-funded studies published or have none published at all. Abramson
feels that researchers have to have access to all the results of their
studies, perform their own analysis of data, write their own conclusions
and
submit the report to peer-reviewed medical journals. A change may be in
the
cards, and as Richard Gerber, MD, notes, the number of patients seeking
alternative medical answers to their problems is becoming too large for
mainstream medical media to ignore. Gerber says that some medical journals
are even publishing articles that explore the nature of these "unorthodox"
treatments and discuss why patients are seeking alternative health care.
Research Notes:
Ex-medical journal editor reveals drug firms' dirty tricks
IAN JOHNSTON
SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
PHARMACEUTICAL companies are using their massive financial clout to
corrupt
medical journals by rigging clinical trials of new drugs, it was claimed
today.
Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), has
exposed a series of tricks used by drug firms to ensure good publicity for
new products in prestigious journals. He said it was often impossible for
editors of the journals to spot a rigged trial - despite the process of
"peer review" where research is checked independently - and also
highlighted
a "conflict of interest" because publishing trials by major drug companies
would result in increased sales.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry denied the
allegations, saying it would make no sense to rig trials because they
would
eventually be "found out".
Writing in the online journal PLOS [Public Library of Science] Medicine,
Mr
Smith, who is now chief executive of private firm UnitedHealth Europe,
said
action should be taken to ensure journals were not becoming "an extension
of
the marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies".
"A large trial published in a major journal has the journal's stamp of
approval, will be distributed round the world and may well receive global
media coverage," he said. "For a drug company, a favourable trial is worth
thousands of pages of advertising.
"The companies seem to get the results [in trials] they want not by
fiddling
the results, which would be far too crude and possibly detectable by peer
review, but rather by asking the 'right' questions."
Med journals 'too close to firms'
Medical journals are an extension of the marketing arms of drug firms,
says
an ex-British Medical Journal editor.
Dr Richard Smith, who edited the BMJ for 13 years, criticized the
journals'
reliance on drug company advertising.
Writing in Public Library of Science Medicine, he also said journals were
undermined by relying on clinical trials funded by the drugs industry.
The BMJ said a debate was needed, but drug industry representatives
rejected
the criticisms.
Dr Smith, who is now chief executive of healthcare firm UnitedHealth
Europe,
said the most conspicuous example of the dependence was reliance on
advertising, but he added it was "the least corrupting form of dependence"
since it was there for all to see.
Dr Smith said the publication of industry-funded trials was a much bigger
problem.
He said: "For a drug company a favorable trial is worth thousands of pages
of advertising, which is why a company will sometimes spend upwards of a
million dollars on reprints of the trial for worldwide distribution."
And Dr Smith argued, unlike ads, these trials were seen as the highest
form
of evidence.
"Fortunately from the point of view of the companies which fund these
trials - but unfortunately for the credibility of the journals who publish
them - they rarely produce results that are unfavorable to the companies'
products."
He said editors are put under further pressure by the demands of producing
a
profit.
"An editor may thus face a frighteningly stark conflict of interest -
publish a trial that will bring in $100,000 (£54,000) of profit, or meet
the
end of year budget by firing an editor."
Publicly-funded trials
He said there needed to be more publicly-funded trials - about two thirds
are currently paid for by the industry - or journals should stop
publishing
such trials.
BMJ editor Dr Fiona Godlee said she agreed with much of what Mr Smith
said.
"There is certainly a need for more transparency, it is something we are
working on.
"The whole issue about advertising is something journals are uncomfortable
about.
"On the one hand we are saying clean up your act, while we are fairly
dependent on the advertising for our survival.
"What we need now is a debate about the issue."
But Richard Ley, of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical
Industry,
said Smith's criticisms were unfounded.
"There would be an outcry if a pharmaceutical company tried to put
pressure
on.
"And we must also remember these trials are peer reviewed."
He also added it was not realistic to think trials could be funded form
public money.
Excerpt from story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4552509.stm
Even when evidence is published in respected medical journals documenting
the dangers of certain drugs and procedures, the unquestioned and almost
religious belief in the biomedical model still rules the decision-making
process among doctors and patients alike. If the above findings applied to
practitioners of any other healing art, including chiropractors,
acupuncturists, or herbalists, their professions would have been
eliminated,
their proponents ridiculed or thrown in jail, and their schools closed by
order of the courts. Instead, the medical establishment today enjoys
incredible prestige. Philanthropists donate billions of dollars for
medical
research, construction of hospitals, and other curing establishments. Even
when it is proven that certain drugs or procedures never worked or no
longer
work, new treatments, based on the old biomedical story, are generated
every
day.
Healing Myths by Donald M Epstein, page 73
Before long, drug companies themselves acquired and published medical
journals, pouring their proprietaries through the funnel of official
medical
publications to disperse through doctors. They also lavished advertising
dollars on independent medical journals, becoming their fiscal anchor. By
the turn of the century, only one out of 250 medical journals relied
solely
on subscription revenues from its professional constituency.28
When Healing Becomes A Crime by Kenny Ausubel, page 287
Three of these studies were published in leading medical journals. No
efforts were made to attract media attention to the embarrassing results.
If
the media had picked up the story they could have accurately reported,
"The
diagnostic test used to scare the pants off heart disease patients and
coerce them into billions of dollars of unnecessary surgical procedures is
a
scam." The information was ignored by physicians and never picked up by
the
press.
Heart Frauds by Charles T McGee MD, page 14
Drug companies control what gets published in medical journals through
their
advertising dollars. An interesting situation surfaced several years ago
when a medical journal published a double-blind study showing an herb had
beneficial effects in the condition being studied.
Heart Frauds by Charles T McGee MD, page 151
Most medical journals now contain about one-third printed material and
two-thirds slick advertisements for drugs. According to the Wall Street
Journal, drug companies spent over $330,000,000 on advertising directed at
doctors in 1990. You can rest assured major medical journals that rely on
drug industry money are not going to publish articles that demonstrate
benefits from competing treatments such as diets, herbs, acupuncture,
chelation, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, or other complimentary
approaches.
Heart Frauds by Charles T McGee MD, page 151
Then again, what about biting the hand that feeds you? Some scientists may
be swayed because they receive money from the chemical or pharmaceutical
industries forgiving lectures or consulting, or their research may be
funded
through industry. For example, since 1997 nearly half the articles
evaluating drugs in the New England Journal of Medicine were written by
scientists who worked as paid advisers to drugmakers or received major
research funding from them. Most medical journals these days don't require
the authors of studies to stay independent of industry.
Hormone Deception by Dr Lindsey Berkson, page 28
There is also little information about any possible influences of the
profitability of medical journals (advertising, reprint orders) on
journals'
editorial content. I am confident that for at least the last quarter of
the
twentieth century, these commercial influences had no influence on
editorial
decisions made by the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine, but
I
have no inside information on other journals. Dr. Richard Smith, editor of
the British Medical Journal, has raised the concern that lucrative
advertising and reprint sales can be a corrupting influence.15 One
experience at the Annals of Internal Medicine in 1992 sent a chill down
the
spines of editors and publishers alike. When the (then) editors, Drs.
Suzanne and Robert Fletcher, published a study sharply critical of the
pharmaceutical industry,16 pharmaceutical advertising in the journal
declined substantially, and remained lower than usual for months
thereafter.17 For editors of many journals whose profit margins are not
robust, that experience might lead them to be chary about criticizing the
advertisers who support their publications. These issues are worthy of
much
more study, but whether editors can be forthcoming about the factors that
influence them, and whether the editors' personal financial conflicts
influence them in judging what to publish will be difficult, if not
impossible, to assess.
On The Take by Jerome P Kassirer M.D., page 91
What I found over the next two and a half years of "researching the
research" is a scandal in medical science that is at least the equivalent
of
any of the recent corporate scandals that have shaken Americans'
confidence
in the integrity of the corporate and financial worlds. Rigging medical
studies, misrepresenting research results published in even the most
influential medical journals, and withholding the findings of whole
studies
that don't come out in a sponsor's favor have all become the accepted norm
in commercially sponsored medical research. To keep the lid sealed on this
corruption of medical science-and to ensure its translation into medical
practice-there is a complex web of corporate influence that includes
disempowered regulatory agencies, commercially sponsored medical
education,
brilliant advertising, expensive public relations campaigns, and
manipulation of free media coverage. And last, but not least, are the
financial ties between many of the most trusted medical experts and the
medical industry. These relationships bear a remarkable resemblance to the
conflicts of interest the Securities and Exchange Commission recently
brought to a halt after learning that securities analysts were receiving
bonuses for writing reports that drove up stock prices with the intent of
bringing in more investment banking business.
Overdosed America by John Abramson MD, page 9
and public scrutiny. Nontransparency is now the norm for commercially
sponsored medical research in much the same way that it had become the
norm
in accounting and business practices in companies such as Enron and
Worldcom, and with much the same results-though the magnitude of the cost
in
dollars and health still remains a well-kept secret. Medical researchers
must have access to all the results of their studies, perform their own
analyses of the data, write up their own conclusions, and submit the
report
for publication to peer-reviewed medical journals. Research data must also
be made available to peer reviewers for medical journals and to the new
oversight body for independent evaluation.
Overdosed America by John Abramson MD, page 253
Corporate-sponsored scientific symposiums provide another means for
manipulating the content of medical journals. In 1992, the New England
Journal of Medicine itself published a survey of 625 such symposiums which
found that 42 percent of them were sponsored by a single pharmaceutical
sponsor. There was a correlation, moreover, between single-company
sponsorship and practices that commercialize or corrupt the scientific
review process, including symposiums with misleading titles designed to
promote a specific brand-name product. "Industry-sponsored symposia are
promotional in nature and . . . journals often abandon the peer-review
process when they publish symposiums,' the survey concluded.20 Drummond
Rennie, a deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical
Association,
describes how the process works in plainer language:
Trust Us We Are Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, page 205
And so on, and so on, until your medicine cabinet looks like a
pharmacy-which, of course, pleases the pharmaceutical companies. They'd
like
to think that doctors work for them. Because these large pharmaceutical
companies make money only when doctors prescribe their drugs, they do
everything they can to make sure that this happens, from supporting
medical
journals with their ads to having their representatives visit every single
doctor's office in the country, where they hand out free samples, buy
lunch
for the staff, distribute gifts-not just paperweights and pens, but toys
for
the kids, "seminars" at excellent restaurants, junkets on Caribbean
islands.
And since doctors are required to continue their medical education, who do
you suppose generally sponsors that education? Pharmaceutical companies.
Ultraprevention by Mark Hyman MD and Mark Liponis MD, page 38
And so on, and so on, until your medicine cabinet looks like a
pharmacy-which, of course, pleases the pharmaceutical companies. They'd
like
to think that doctors work for them. Because these large pharmaceutical
companies make money only when doctors prescribe their drugs, they do
everything they can to make sure that this happens, from supporting
medical
journals with their ads to having their representatives visit every single
doctor's office in the country, where they hand out free samples, buy
lunch
for the staff, distribute gifts-not just paperweights and pens, but toys
for
the kids, "seminars" at excellent restaurants, junkets on Caribbean
islands.
And since doctors are required to continue their medical education, who do
you suppose generally sponsors that education? Pharmaceutical companies.
Ultraprevention by Mark Hyman MD and Mark Liponis MD, page 38
That marketing "strategy" isn't reserved just for patients. Medical
doctors
are targeted by drug advertising as well, and medical journals are filled
with ads pushing one drug over another. The drug industry spends millions
of
dollars every year on advertising and, according to the report, "the money
is well spent, since marketing undoubtedly influences the way that doctors
prescribe."
Under The Influence Modern Medicine by Terry A Rondberg DC, page 150
Following Pasteur's demonstration that attenuation of pathogenic microbes
transformed some pathogens into vaccines, the international scientific
community rushed to identify and convert into vaccines the leading causes
of
death in the industrial world: tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera,
dysentery,
diphtheria, meningitis, influenza, typhoid, childbed fever, and sexually
transmitted diseases. Corrupt pharmaceutical companies quickly started
producing vaccines scientifically "proven" to prevent all these diseases
and
more. medical journals rushed into print successful accounts of the
discovery of "miracle" vaccines for tuberculosis, syphilis, and other such
diseases. American medical journals also started carrying advertisements
for
and receiving enticing funds from pharmaceutical companies selling such
vaccines. Most, if not all, of these vaccines were worthless; many were
even
harmful. And though they were published in the leading medical journals,
supporting studies were bogus. But then, as now, it was difficult for many
to accept that pharmaceutical companies could be guilty of chicanery.
Vaccination By Peggy O'Mara, page 15
A large proportion of the medical journals published today could not stay
in
business without advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical industry.
While
such strong-arm tactics as those alleged against JAMA are probably the
exception, there is undoubtedly a more subtle, but more pervasive, type of
pressure on editorial boards to keep their sources of funding happy. Since
virtually every medical journal advertiser would be displeased by articles
emphasizing natural medicine over drugs and surgery, there is little
incentive for editorial boards to accept these articles.
Preventing And Reversing Osteoporosis By Alan R Gaby MD, page 250
I am not implying that those who review manuscripts are corrupt or even
conscious of their bias. Nevertheless, doctors and scientists who are
interested in nutritional medicine almost invariably complain about how
difficult it is to have their work published in "peer-reviewed" medical
journals.
Preventing And Reversing Osteoporosis By Alan R Gaby MD, page 250
All this research and money has been spent to prove the obvious! Yet,
despite all these logical findings, health authorities, medical doctors
and
other health professionals are not taking advantage of the benefits that
nutrition (see related ebook on nutrition) can bring in reducing the
incidence and mortality of many diseases. The thing that really amazes me
is
that doctors do not recognize any relationship between diet and brain
function (behavior, learning capacity, etc.), proof enough that they are
eating too much junk! Their only "brain food" is reading medical journals
which, as I will expose, has resulted in atrocious judgmental errors.
Health In The 21st Century by Fransisco Contreras MD, page 123
A CBS health report was released: Ghostwriting Articles for medical
journals
http://cbshealthwatch.medscape.com/medscape/p/G_Library/article.asp?R...
Now, many drug companies are actually writing those articles and then
paying
doctors to sign their names to them. It's called ghostwriting. "The
articles
are written by drug company researchers, given to an outside doctor to
review and sign his or her name to, and then submitted to a journal. In
effect, it's like washing dirty money," explains Douglas Peters, a medical
malpractice attorney.
PROZAC Panacea or Pandora by Ann Blake Tracy PhD, page 280
Most medical journals nowadays devote about a third of their space to
advertisements for drugs. According to The Wall Street Journal, drug
companies spend over $330,000,000 on advertising directed toward doctors.
medical journals quite literally rely on drug money for their survival.
Saturated Fat May Save Your Life by Bruce Fife ND, page 199
"Drug companies spend millions of dollars educating physicians. Drug
companies are the major advertisers in all medical journals. They fund
clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of their drugs and they pay
these researchers to speak at hospitals and medical schools. And if a drug
company that makes a cholesterol-lowering drug provides most of the funds
to
conduct research on the effectiveness of that drug, then there is a
potential for bias, even if unwittingly, despite independent monitoring
committees that sometimes oversee these studies. Drug companies provide
sandwiches and doughnuts at hospital conferences and for the doctors'
lounges. They provide free samples of their products. Drug companies also
sponsor scientific meetings on the importance of lowering cholesterol,
often
emphasizing the importance of cholesterol-lowering drugs. These meetings
are
sometimes held in resorts, and doctors who attend may even be given free
transportation and expenses in addition to their food and entertainment."
Saturated Fat May Save Your Life by Bruce Fife ND, page 91
An example of a strong drug proponent who advocates chronic maintenance
administration of antidepressant medication is Dr. Martin Keller,
professor
and chairman of the department of psychiatry at Brown University. Keller
has
published numerous research articles, many of them coauthored with other
psychopharmacologists who take a similar position on the treatment of
depression. Appearing in prestigious medical and psychiatric journals,
Keller's articles have the appearance of impartial academic publications.
Yet, as described in Chapter 5, the October 8, 1999, Boston Globe revealed
that "Keller earned a total of $842,000 last year [1998], according to
financial records, and more than half of his income came .. from
pharmaceutical companies whose drugs he touted in medical journals and at
conferences." For example, while publishing articles specifically
endorsing
Zoloft for the chronic treatment of depression, Keller received $218,000
in
1998 alone from Zoloft's manufacturer, Pfizer. "At the same time,"
continued
the Boston Globe, "Keller was receiving millions of dollars in funding
from
the National Institute of Mental Health for research on depression and
ways
to treat it." The Boston Globe said Keller cited his NIMH-funded research
on
depression in an article in which he made claims on behalf of drugs like
Zoloft. See D. Kong and A. Bass, "Case at Brown Leads to Review, NIMH
Studies Tighter Rules on Conflicts," Boston Globe, October 8,1999, pp.
B1,B5.
Prozac Backlash by Joseph Glenmullen MD, page 373
A recent survey of consumer health-care choices in the United States found
that nearly one in four Americans utilize some form of alternative
medicine.
This means that consumers are spending more than a billion dollars a year
in
the United States on alternative therapies. Because this trend toward
increased interest in alternative medicine is having a powerful economic
impact, more and more physicians and health-care providers are seeking
information about alternative health care. There are now several medical
schools in the United States that are offering courses to students on
alternative medical treatments. Popular medical journals are publishing
articles that examine the reasons why patients are seeking alternative
health care and that explore the nature of "unorthodox" treatments.
Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber MD, page 510
New breakthroughs about bone health are happening every day. There's
always
some cutting-edge technology described in the medical journals. There are
loads of lab tests and diagnostic criteria and better treatments under
development, and some of them will no doubt revolutionize the way we care
for low bone density. The demand for these advances is high (every baby
boom
woman has a vested interest), so there's plenty of money in it for those
who
do the best work. By all means keep up with the news, which will
inevitably
outpace even an up-to-date book like this one, and choose the best new
options to maximize your health.
The Bone Density Program George Kessler DO PC, page 19
In the late 1970s and 1980s, I added another interest-food politics.
Medical
research alone cannot change what Americans eat. Vital research paid for
with taxpayers' money remains locked in the medical journals unless it is
communicated to the public and implemented by government policy. To help
shape that policy, I chaired the Nutrition Coordinating Committee at the
NIH
for nine consecutive years and co-chaired the Interagency Committee for
Human Nutrition Research at the Office of Science and Technology Policy at
the White House for five years. These committees influenced nutrition and
food policy throughout the federal government.
The Omega Diet by Artemis P Simopoulos MD and Jo Robinson, page 365
Aghast at Hoxsey's upset victory, Dr. Fishbein decided to lift the
controversy outside medical journals to center stage in the public media.
He
jointly authored "Blood Money" in the American Weekly, the Sunday magazine
supplement of the Hearst newspaper chain. The installment on cancer
quackery
was part of a lavish six-part "Medical Hucksters" series. It strutted
Fishbein's purple prose and yellow journalism, lacerating his favorite
target, Harry Hoxsey. The tirade smoldered against a lurid four-color
painting of a frock-coated Dickensian figure. Wearing white
When Healing Becomes A Crime by Kenny Ausubel, page 102
...chemotherapy research has made the headlines of the majority of medical
journals with all the academic fanfare, applause, prizes and the solemn
acceptance of the experts with authority on the subject. The researchers
are
happy, their universities and institutes have obtained more money for
their
impressive advances, the industry is bulging with profits and the patients
are dying. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that their (pseudo)
therapeutic value borders on the criminal. My professional pride cries out
for the academic recognition of the establishment, that the authorities of
the oncological branch would give me their blessing. My conscience as a
physician nevertheless demands that I offer to my patients sufficient
resources so that he or she can decide which route to follow in their
struggle to recover health.
Health In The 21st Century by Fransisco Contreras MD, page 340
A stupid article. It is true that pharmaceutical companies have had some
