The Truth about Peer-reviewed studies
in [Immunology]
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From: Jan Drew on 9 Nov 2007 22:36 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 Overview: The truth about medical journals, and how drug companies exert heavy influence over published scientific articles
From: Peter Moran on 10 Nov 2007 15:54 "Jan Drew" <jdrew1374(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:i27Zi.7610$ww2.5477(a)newssvr19.news.prodigy.net... > 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 undue influence in medicine, just as the very same companies or their ilk are bilking billions of dollars out of the followers of alternative medicine with inflated claims and worthless products that may not even contain what is stated. You cannot characterize either field of medicine solely by this fact. Yet note how cancer quacks such as Hoxsey and Contreras have to constantly push this line, rather than ever producing patients with established cancer cured by their own methods. Chemotherapy, for all its faults and arguable misuse does help some cancer patients, and cures a few. Note also how keeping focus on the chemotherapy and the pharmaceutical industry allows authors to avoid talking about surgery which does cure a lot of cancer. And drugs did not evolve from vaccines, as this nitwit author states. . They clearly evolved from herbalism. Plant chemicals were known to have pharmacological actions long before vaccines were thought of (and they probably have mostly harmful actions, if you compare the few freely edible plant materials with the numbers that contain toxic chemicals. ) All the early pharmaceuticals were herb extracts. PM
From: Peter Moran on 10 Nov 2007 15:59 Sorry, should have trimmed a bit -- "Jan Drew" <jdrew1374(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:i27Zi.7610$ww2.5477(a)newssvr19.news.prodigy.net... > 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. <snip> > 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 undue influence in medicine, just as the very same companies or their ilk are bilking billions of dollars out of the followers of alternative medicine with inflated claims and worthless products. You cannot characterize either field of medicine solely by this fact. Yet note how cancer quacks such as Hoxsey and Contreras have to constantly push this line, rather than ever producing patients with established cancer cured by their own methods. Chemotherapy, for all its faults and arguable misuse does help some cancer patients, and cures a few. Observe also how keeping focus on the chemotherapy and the pharmaceutical industry allows authors to avoid talking about surgery which does cure a lot of cancer. And drugs did not evolve from vaccines, as this nitwit author states. . They clearly evolved from herbalism. Chemicals in plants were known to have pharmacological actions long before vaccines were thought of (and they probably have mostly harmful actions, if you compare the few freely edible plant materials with the numbers that contain toxic chemicals. ) All the early pharmaceuticals were herb extracts. PM
From: Jan Drew on 11 Nov 2007 04:20 "Peter Moran" <pmoran(a)internode.on.net> wrote in message news:13jc6iu1deokn87(a)corp.supernews.com... > "Jan Drew" <jdrew1374(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote in message > news:i27Zi.7610$ww2.5477(a)newssvr19.news.prodigy.net... >> 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 >&g |