"publishing favorable articles" is an issue completely separate from "ghost
writing" crazy horse.
"fresh~horses" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:"Skeptic" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<WkTlc.22054$Ia6.3198278@attbi_s03>...
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:The source is an online Canadian news source. The sources the article
quotes as proof of this are zero. Ilena... posting more hearsay, are
we?
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:According to Star magazine - with just as many sources as your article -
George Washington was really a woman and Mars (or Saturn?... I forget
now)
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:is really an alien space station.
Of course, without a means of verifying stories, they are just that
stories - works of fiction. Have a good day (and do try to spend this
one
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:in reality).
The [censored] Parade
No Free Lunch (www.nofreelunch.org)Subject: You missed the biggest problem
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 18:53:51 -0600
From: <[email hidden]>
To: <[email hidden]>The worst problem with drug promotion lies not with the sales reps but
with industry-funded research. I personally witnessed the excesses for
8 years while on the faculty of a major medical school. This operates
at several levels.First, one must understand that in academics teaching is like catching
fly balls and publishing is like hitting home runs. They didn't pay
Hank Aaron for his fielding. It isn't just the publishing and
reflected glory to the institution that drives academicians to do
research. The institution takes a cut of every grant, whether it's
industry money or an NIH grant. The percentages vary, but they are
rather large; a $10MM grant yields several million for the hospital,
school, or whatever institution the grantee works for. Those who bring
in grant money have *power*. What can they get with that power? A
raise, a bigger office, private secretary, less time actually having
to teach residents or touch a patient (when I was in academics it
seemed to be a matter of prestige to *not* carry a pager). Also,
although it is difficult to directly gain monetarily from grant money,
one can usually buy a few new computers or other toys that may find
their way home.Publishing favorable articles leads to invitations to speak at fun
places - all expenses paid - and receive nice honoraria to boot. Yes,
the drug companies fly private practitioners to nice places, but who
are they listening to? Impartial lecturers? No - they are listening to
the drug [censored] who will say nice things about the product. Some of
the drug [censored] I met during my own march in the [censored] parade were
big names in the field, including departmental chairmen. Some of the
biggest names in my specialty are, in my opinion, on the take. The
people who really get wined and dined at these meetings are the
"mouthpieces", not the attendees.One time I was even mailed a lecture, complete with slides to present,
at a sponsored meeting at a very nice resort. When I balked and
insisted on giving my own lecture with my own slides it caused a major
storm. Another time, one of my colleagues asked another colleague to
do the statistics for his drug company data. When the results came
back unflattering he asked if perhaps a different statistical test
might be tried.If a researcher plays the game well, publishing flattering studies and
giving lots of positive lectures, he might get a real plum: a
"consultant's contract", or a position on the "advisory board". This
can mean tens ofthousands of dollars of income per year for very
little actual work.Therefore the real danger is in the poisonous influence the private
sector has on the generation of scientifi studies. Bad results and
balanced lectures are not rewarded. Sadly, with the drying up of
public funds for research in the past two decades, academic
institutions have had to rely more and more on private funding. When I
graduated medical school in 1979 medical journals did not require
financial disclosure. Now you see it everywhere - a sad reflection of
the influence of commercial research funding, and the closest anyone
will come to actually admitting we have a serious problem.When a drug rep buys you lunch you know you are being fed a sales
pitch. The truly insidious aspect of all this is that published
peer-reviewed articles funded by drug companies are usually taken at
face value, and the lectures are given by drug [censored] (after all, they
are the ones with funding and have written all the articles - they are
the "authority" by virtue of the sheer volume they have published).
The damage done by this misinformation takes years to undo.