Corruption + nexus between med. journals and pharma

[Guest guest]

"DMH" <igan

Thu Sep 8, 2005 3:57 am

OT - Medical journals & Big Pharma bryonia2001

 

Another slant on how articles such as the Lancet piece come to be written:

 

Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) for 25 years, wrote a

piece this May on how pharmaceutical companies use medical journals to promote

their drugs

 

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/jour\

nal.pmed.0020138

[ copy and paste the link your browser for proper access]

 

They have refined the art of designing clinical trials and studies that provide

the results they

want -- and the journals love to print positive stories.

 

And how do the drug companies create trials that increase their chances of a

favorable result? According to Smith, they:

 

1) Conduct a trial of their drug against a treatment known to be inferior;

2) Conduct a trial in which the competitor drug is given at too low a dose to be

effective (or too high a dose, which makes it seem more toxic than the

company's drug);

3) Conduct trials too small to show differences from the competition;

4) Use multiple endpoints in trials (or do multicenter trials, or conduct

subgroup analyses) -- and select only those that give favorable results for

publication;

5) Structure the results so they're more likely to impress (e.g., a reduction in

relative risk, not absolute risk).

 

So be aware of these deck-stackers when next you read a medical journal article.

Then go out & see "The Constant Gardener."

 

Peace,

Cinnabar

 

{Addition from moderator: You can also see on the same website

the discussion on reliability of modern research findings:

 

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/jour\

nal.pmed.0020124

[ Copy and paste the link to visit this second article]