How Drug Companies Deceive Doctors

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How Drug Companies Deceive Doctors

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 17:38:10 -0000

 

 

 

 

HealthFX

 

 

 

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How Drug Companies Deceive Doctors

 

 

 

By Shane Ellison, M.Sc.

 

Health Myths Exposed © 2005

 

 

 

Following doctor's orders has become synonymous with danger. Every

year, FDA approved drugs kill twice as many people as the total number

of U.S. deaths from the Vietnam War.[1] Death by medicine flourishes

because deceit, not science, governs a doctor's prescribing habits.

As an ex-drug chemist, I witnessed this first-hand.

 

 

 

This deceit comes in many forms. Medical ghostwriting and checkbook

science are the most prominent.

 

 

 

Doctors rely on peer-reviewed medical journals to learn about

prescription drugs. These journals include the Lancet, British

Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of

the American Medical Association. It is assumed that these

professional journals offer the hard science behind any given drug.

This assumption is wrong. Medical journals can't be trusted thanks to

medical ghost writing.

 

 

 

Medical ghostwriting is the practice of hiring PhD's to crank out drug

reports that hype benefits and hide negative side effects. Once

complete, drug companies recruit doctor's to put their name on the

report as authors. These reports are then published in the above

mentioned medical journals.[2] The carrot for this deceitful practice

is money and prestige. Ghostwriters can receive up to $20,000 per

report. Doctors receive prestige from having been published.

Ultimately, patients get bad drugs disguised as good medicine.

 

 

 

As deplorable as medical ghostwriting sounds, it is more common than

you think. The world's most influential medical journal, the New

England Journal of Medicine, has admitted that 50% of their drug

articles are ghostwritten.

 

 

 

The editor of the British Journal of Medicine has acknowledged that

medical ghostwriting has become a serious problem for his publication:

" We are being hoodwinked by the drug companies. The articles come in

with doctors' names on them and we often find some of them have little

or no idea about what they have written. " [3]

 

 

 

Consider the testimony from deputy editor of The Journal of the

American Medical Association: " This [journal articles] is all about

bypassing science. Medicine is becoming a sort of Cloud Cuckoo Land,

where doctors don't know what papers they can trust in the journals,

and the public doesn't want to believe. " [4]

 

 

 

Other weapons of mass deception exist – checkbook science. As defined

by Diana Zuckerman, PhD, checkbook science is research intended not to

expand knowledge or to benefit humanity, but instead to sell drugs.

It has stolen the very soul of University research, scientific method,

and the patients who serve as human subjects.[5]

 

 

 

Drug companies use checkbook science to sponsor their own drug

research via the halls of academia and government institutions. Money

is used to design their own studies, interpret the results, and stuff

negative data under the drug-rug. The drug-rug is a behemoth rug. It

has to be. A myriad of negative drug data exists.

 

 

 

Like medical ghostwriting, checkbook science is more common than you

think. A third of academic professors have personal financial ties to

drug makers.[6] Called the " Stealth Merger " by the LA Times, top

scientists at the National Institutes of Health also collect paychecks

and stock options from the drug industry.[7] This has been going on

for over 20 years.[8] Known as the Bayh-Dole Act, U.S law was amended

in 1980 to allow for these flagrant conflicts of interest.4

 

 

 

This calculated deceit is scandalous. Hopefully the line at the

pharmaceutical trough gets shorter as this scandal becomes public.

Though, drug makers have an insurance policy for this –

Direct-to-Consumer advertising. The oft repeated " ask your doctor "

ensures that the herd instinctively embraces drugs, drugs and more

drugs.

 

 

 

Understanding medical ghost writing and checkbook science explains why

medical doctors have been hypnotized into drug worship – they only see

the positive. It also explains why modern medicine is more deadly and

lucrative than war – the danger has been silenced with the pen and money.

 

 

 

Drug companies do not take responsibility for the wonton prescription

drug deceit. Instead, victims have been made invisible - dehumanized.

They are not recognized as children, or men with significant

contribution to society. Their deaths are simply shrugged off and

attributed to sickness or aging.

 

 

 

Those who profit from prescription drugs should hold some sort of

record for the having the most reckless disregard for human life. If

the deceit continues the prescription drug leviathan will silently

kill more people than Napalm dropped on Vietnamese villages.

 

 

 

About the Author

 

 

 

Shane holds a Master's degree in organic chemistry and has first hand

experience in drug design. Specializing in therapeutic nutrition, he

has made it his mission to introduce healthy lifestyle and nutrition

habits to the general public. He is author of Health Myths Exposed.

His books and FREE offers can be found at www.healthmyths.net.

 

[1] Approximately 58,000 American's died in Vietnam. FDA approved

drugs kill 106 – 125,000 people per year when used as prescribed.

 

[2] Source: CBC's Marketplace. Aired March 25, 2003. Researcher

Colman Jones.

 

[3] http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1101680,00.html

 

[4] Shannon Brownlee. Doctors Without Borders. Why you can't trust

medical journals anymore. Washington Monthly. April 2003.

 

[5] Zuckerman, D. Hype in health reporting: " checkbook science " buys

distortion of medical news. International Journal of Health Services.

2003;33(2).

 

[6] Bekelman, J.E., Li, Y. and Gross, C. P. Scope and impact of

financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research. Journal of the

American Medical Association. 289: 454-465.

 

[7] Willman D. Stealth merger: drug companies and government medical

research. Los Angeles Times. 2003 Dec 7;:A1, A32-3.

 

[8]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0404.brownlee.html#byline

 

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