Drug firms accused of distorting research: Remember this? The day before Septemb

[Guest guest]

SSRI-Research@

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:44:37 -0000

[sSRI-Research] Remember this? The day before September 11,

2001...

 

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk

 

Drug firms accused of distorting research

 

 

Sarah Boseley, health editor

Monday September 10 2001

The Guardian

 

 

Thirteen of the world's leading medical journals today mount an

outspoken attack on the rich and powerful drug companies, accusing

them of distorting the results of scientific research for the sake of

profits.

 

The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the

American Medical Association and other major journals accuse the drug

giants of using their money - or the threat of its removal - to tie

up academic researchers with legal contracts so that they are unable

to report freely and fairly on the results of drug trials.

 

The scientists, often from cash-starved university departments, may

be prevented from having access to the raw data gathered in the trial

which would tell them how well or not the drug worked and whether

there were side-effects. They may be given no say in the way the

trial is designed and they may have only limited participation in

interpreting the results.

 

" These terms are draconian for self-respecting scientists, but many

have accepted them because they know that if they do not, the sponsor

will find someone else who will. And, unfortunately, even when an

investigator has had substantial input into trial design and data

interpretation, the results of the finished trial may be buried

rather than published if they are unfavourable to the sponsor's

product, " says the commentary which will run this week in 12 of the

journals. The British Medical Journal is running a separate editorial

with the same message.

 

The editors say that the study produced for publication may be skewed

in the interests of the pharmaceutical company, which hopes to make

big profits from a new drug. It is also a betrayal of the patient who

has agreed to take part in what he or she believes is research to

help find new and better treatments for disease.

 

Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, said the editors hoped to start

a debate over what patients are told when they sign a consent form to

take part in a trial.

 

" The patient should know who is in control of the study. Are you - my

doctor or the scientist doing the study - in control or is the

pharmaceutical company in control? They are never told anything of

the sort. At the moment, informed patient consent is a fabrication. "

 

Academic scientists had little choice but to accept the restrictions

imposed on them, he said, because they knew that otherwise the

funding they needed for research would go to the increasing number of

private contract research organisations. Those organisa tions last

year in the USA received 60% of the research grants handed out by

pharmaceutical companies.

 

Where the company controls the trial, the data and the writing of the

study, he said, " the research will be presented to favour the product

that company makes. I think it happens all the time - certainly in

most papers that involve a new drug. It's obvious that that will

happen. For the company it is their profit we are talking about.

There is a clash of interests " .

 

The editors intend to take action, by requiring all authors to

disclose details of their own and the sponsoring pharmaceutical

company's roles in the study.

 

Some editors will be asking for a signed declaration from the author

that they accept responsibility for the trial. If the company has

sole control of the data, the journals will not publish the study.

 

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drug-Free School Zone? Just Say NO to Prozac for Children.