Pharma publishing wrap-up

I have been blogging about reports of publishing scandals in the pharmaceutical industry of late, and today published a story in the Toronto Star  wrapping up some of them.

From the creation of fake academic journals, to bogus stories submitted to real journals, to falsified results in some of academia's most respected publications – the pharmaceutical industry has been rocked by allegations that the world's biggest drug companies put public relations above public safety.

As consumer advocate Peter Lurie put it recently: "I've seen no shortage of creativity emanating from the marketing departments of drug companies."

The allegations have come to light thanks to lawsuits in the United States and Australia seeking compensation for drug costs that the plaintiffs claim were too high. The suits allege the drug companies skewed academic investigations into their products, thereby driving up the price they could charge.

Trudo Lemmens, an associate professor of medical law at the University of Toronto, says it should not be left to the civil courts to uncover what he calls "publishing as marketing."

"You have to ask yourself, why isn't there more regulatory control?"

Lemmens would like to see tougher conflict-of-interest rules and more oversight of how drug trials are conducted, and the results published.

Obviously more is published online in the full story, on the Star's Healthzone website.

Comments

[deana]

With all due respects, Stuart, this issue cannot be presented as "news." It is the same old, same old. The only news is that it hasn't been solved yet, it's still going on and we might as well get used to it.

People get ill and injured. This is life (and death). Most often they get ill or injured from basic lifestyle mistakes. Because we live in an insanely moneymaking world, mistakes are not discouraged. Most money is made on the backs of those who make mistakes, and nowadays there are a lot of both.

As such, life is becoming more and more of a disgusting proposition. With reports such as the one above i.e. that medical evils are not going away anytime soon, the news industry amounts to something that tells us there is no news. It keeps us ignorant, and suggests that this is good.

Getting to the root, people should really, really, resist bringing more life into this disgusting environment. Alternatively, kids who sadly find themselves created, born and sitting in a kindergarten class should at the very least, be presented with ideas and facts as to how to avoid the mistakes that lead to illness and injury, not how to make them. Their increasing awareness would be welcome news to society.

It would also curb my own particular revulsion to seeing the hopeful expressions of idiocy on the faces of expectant women, and new parents.

Sparing children the truth as future mistake-makers so they can have "more fun" is not a good way to remediate what awaits us as living beings. Life should not be presented as a fun trip to McDonalds and cardiac pills afterwards; or, brainwashing towards stressful jobs to get the money to buy these as well as to justify that we have "no time to eat better" and have to get everywhere fast.

This process leads to dizzy campaigns to sell the old oily fries and drugs. Drug companies are no different from fast food. They go together. So does their lying, manipulative, hope-inducing advertizing.

How about ditching the debates which give the impression of ethics and caring for anything medical? We should just state the dirty truth as black and white, and have the kids colour in between the lines so they get the full picture. This is the only way to live.