Is Medicine and Science for Sale?

Dangerous Spin Doctors #3
Mark Hyman November 29

Medicine and Science for Sale

Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine recently wrote a scathing analysis of the infiltration of Big Pharma into medical research, education, and drug policy.(iv) Aside from the $30 billion a year spent on marketing pharmaceuticals to physicians (known as “continuing medical education”), Big Pharma has turned many academic researchers into hired hands. Thought leaders from academic medical centers are provided grants to do research “contracted for” by Pharma, and the research is often designed, executed, and ghostwritten by the funders. The conflict of interest statements of authors on research articles now often runs several pages long. These authors not only receive grants but sit on corporate advisory boards, receive large speaking fees, and enter into patent and royalty agreements with Pharma.

Experts like these are also relied upon to create practice guidelines. These guidelines help physicians determine what medications to use and how to keep up with “best practices”. Yet the panels that develop these guidelines are full of scientists and physicians with financial ties to the industry or to the drugs being evaluated. For example, in a survey of 200 expert panels, one third of the panelists had a financial interest in the drugs they evaluated.

Another example: In 2004, the National Institute of Health’s National Cholesterol Education Program, dramatically lowered the ideal “bad” or LDL cholesterol level. This led to guidelines that expanded the number of Americans who “should” take statin drugs from 13 million to 36 million. (v) There was only one problem. Eight of the nine panel members who established these new guidelines had industry ties. An independent group of over 30 scientists in a letter to the National Institutes of Health publically opposed these recommendations.

Even more recently, 95 of the 170 psychiatrists and contributors to the new manual for psychiatric illnesses (DSM-V) were found to have financial ties to companies that make psychiatric drugs.

Studies have also shown that practice guidelines from independent groups such as the American College of Cardiology are based on inadequate or questionable science.(vi) It would appear that our evidence-based medicine isn’t based on very much evidence.

http://www.drfranklipman.com/dangerous-spin-doctors-7-steps-to-protect-yourself-from-deception-in-medical-research/