Today's news reports about an increase suicide rate in 2004 offer an opportunity to witness how the media unwittingly disseminates pharmaceutical industry generated propaganda.
The Texas whistleblower lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson promises to topple the house of cards upon which the public mental health system rests.
The question is: will Eli Lilly succeed, once again, to divert public attention from the revelations contained in its internal documents about the company's illegal marketing practices and its failure to warn about lethal risks posed by its product?
NY Times reports: In March 2002, Lilly rejected plans to give psychiatrists guidance about how
to treat diabetes, "worrying that doing so would tarnish Zyprexa's reputation."
Medical researchers who commit fraud and research misconduct are caught only when a person of conscience steps up to the plate and blows the whistle. There are no systemic, independent checks and balances to prevent research fraud or abuse of patients.
Bad Medicine – Editorial – Guardian UK Sat, 12 Jun 2004 New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, is being recognized as a hero on both sides of the Atlantic. That’s because, unlike FDA officials, he knows how to use a “smoking gun” to affect change in corporate practices to…
NIH AIDS Research Chief Rewrote Safety Report – AP Wed, 15 Dec 2004 John Solomon of The Associated Press continues his documented expose of the inner workings of the AIDS Division of theNational Institutes of Health (NIH). At the same time that the Los Angeles Times and Congfressional hearings focused…
July 14, 2002 Corporate Influence on Medicine, Healthcare Budgets, Investors FYI Because medicine’s pronouncements are so widely propagated and affect so many people’s lives, corporate influence and manipulation of the truth is more devastating than mere corporate accounting malfeasance. Recent revelations demonstrate how corporate influence and greed – rather than…
The pharmaceutical industry seems to be predisposed to corporate crime– much as the Mafia is–it’s their way of doing business.
"Even though clinical research is a noble and worthy activity, it’s very easy to lose your moral compass if your primary goal is the dollar amount of grant funding that you generate."
An independent review by a team of German analysts published in the American Journal of Psychiatry confirms that corporate bias is ubiquitous in clinical trials.
In this era of commercially-driven medical research—whether conducted by industry or academia—it behooves journal editors—no matter how prestigious the authors submitting articles for publication—to at least follow Ronald Reagan’s dictum, “trust but verify.”
