How Big Pharma Controls the Science
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By Arjun WaliaThe Pulse
In Brief
The Facts:
A new analysis found that 81% of authors whose work appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association, failed to disclose payments as required.
The researchers found 118 authors who received a total of $7.48 million.
The majority of drug studies are funded by the pharmaceutical company, authored by employees of the company and researchers who accepted payments from the company.
Reflect On:
In the US, pharmaceutical companies represent the largest lobbying entity. They give twice to congress than the next biggest lobbying entity, which is oil and gas.
Just imagine the power they exercise over both republicans and democrats, the medical industry and academic institutions.
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“Trust the science” is a slogan we’ve heard for the past two years, but science calling into question claims from companies like Pfizer and Moderna regarding their COVID products was ignored, censored and ridiculed. This is the complete opposite of science, and anybody who is a student of science knows that the science is never “settled” and always questionable.
Even the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) was subjected to censorship and Facebook “fact checking” for sharing a story that uncovered significant fraud during Pfizer’s COVID vaccine clinical trials. The BMJ responded and referred to these fact-checkers as incompetent.
In a transparent world, this type of news and information would be at the forefront of big media, but it’s not. As a result, those who are not diving deep and doing their ‘own research’ have been unaware of some very significant information that may change their perception of what’s happening.
A New Analysis
Concerns over conflicts of interest in the medical field is nothing new, but the issue has become quite extreme. For example, a recent analysis in preprint form published last January found that 81 percent of authors whose work appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) – two of the most influential medical journals – failed to disclose payments they received.
The analysis looked at 31 research articles that were published in both of the journals in 2017. The researchers found 118 authors who received a total of $7.48 million. OpenPayments, a U.S. government database where drug makers must report payments to physicians and other health care providers, was used to collect this data. The 23 researchers that received the largest payments received a total of $6.32 million.
It’s important to note that many consider these companies to be akin to criminal organizations operating under the guise of goodwill. For example. Pfizer has been assessed billions in criminal convictions, civil penalties and jury awards. They’ve set records for both total penalties and criminal fines.
In 2012, the NEJM published 73 articles on original studies of new drugs, which represented drugs approved by the FDA since 2000. It was found that 82 percent of them had been funded by the pharmaceutical company selling the product, and 68 percent of them had authors who were employees of that company. Finally, it was found that 50 percent had lead researchers who accepted money from a drug company.
Arnold Seymour Relman (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and Former Editor in Chief of the NEJM co authored a paper with Marcia Angell, another long time Editor in Chief of the NEJM about how the drug industry distorts medicine and politics. In it, he stated the following,
“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.”
Arnold Seymour Relman (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and Former Editor in Chief of the NEJM
What’s disturbing is that this type of activity has cost many lives. For example, a 2006 report by GlaxoSmithKline in the NEJM concluded that Avandia was a great drug for treating diabetes. At the time, the senior vice president of the company Lawson Macartney stated the following in a news release;
“We now have clear evidence from a large international study that the initial use of (Avandia) is more effective than standard therapies.”
The trial used to approve the drug had been funded by GlaxoSmithKline, and each of the eleven authors had received money from the company. Four were employees and held company stock. The other seven were academics who had received grants or consultant fees from the firm.
The drug had been estimated to cause approximately 80,000 heart attacks and deaths, a safety signal that at the time of approval should have been quite clear. This risk was something most likely ignored given he history of these corporations, but we can’t say for sure.
A NEJM study in 2007 linked Avandia to a 43% increased risk of heart attacks, and a 64% increased risk of death from heart disease. Avandia is still FDA approved and available in the U.S.
According to 2013 research conducted at the University of Arizona College of Law, even when pharma companies aren’t directly funding the research, company stockholders, consultants, directors and officers are almost always involved in conducting them.
Furthermore, Big Pharma knows citizens are ‘hip’ to this type of thing, this is why they hire doctors to write “science” instead of a company representative. It’s called “ghostwriting.” This practice started in the ’50s and ’60s when tobacco executives were trying to shut down scientists and doctors claiming their products were causing cancer. In fact, doctors used to prescribe cigarettes while all of this was going on, not knowing that they were actually harmful. Evidence suggests the corporations already knew about this harm.*
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Via https://thepulse.one/2022/03/10/new-analysis-reveals-how-much-big-pharma-controls-the-science/
*Journalist George Seldes reported on the 1938 John Hopkins study showing heavy smoking reduced life span in 1941. See http://muckrakerfarm.com/1941/01/george-seldes-tobacco-1940-1950/