Follow him on 
A letter to the editor -- sparked by revleations in this blog, in The Scientist online and the American Journal of Bioethics blog -- calls on medical publishing company Elsevier to either divest of its respected journal The Lancet, or its pharmaceutical services division, which helps drug companies promote their products.
"Although the relationship between medical publishing and service to the pharmaceutical industry is not unique to Elsevier, we question the compatibility of these two roles," wrote Jon Jureidini, a psychiatry and paediatrics researcher at Australia's University of Adelaide, and Robyn Clothier, a staffer at the non-profit Healthy SKepticism, which Jureidini heads.
Elsevier wrote a response letter, saying specialty publications are okay as long as they come with full disclosure.
We believe that high standards for disclosure are appropriate and necessary to ensure that the purpose and sponsorship of any publication are clear to the reader, and we are confident the disclosure policies in place at Excerpta Medica meet this standard.
Yes, but is this disclosure passed down to the patient? I doubt whether the doctor informs the patient of the ins and outs in the five minutes that an average appointment lasts.
Look, medical care is a combination of lottery and an "Idol" contest. The average patient goes to a doctor hoping to get lucky as well as to get the doctor to like him. There is absolutely no guarantee of impartiality.
Things are getting really bad this way. Professionals are all so touchy. It's like political correctness has entered the picture and "X" patient has to feel sorry for "Y" doctor because of some issue he has. Shouldn't it be the other way around with the patient's clear and present illness holding more weight than the doctor or nurse's personal story?
Posted by: terryb | August 13, 2009 at 07:25 AM