"Ghosts in the Journals" (print headline) - Medical "research" is Pharma PR

[SOS]

NYT - Business - Page One - August 19, 2009

"A growing body of evidence suggests that doctors at some of the nation’s top medical schools have been attaching their names and lending their reputations to scientific papers that were drafted by ghostwriters working for drug companies — articles that were carefully calibrated to help the manufacturers sell more products.

Experts in medical ethics condemn this practice as a breach of the public trust. Yet many universities have been slow to recognize the extent of the problem, to adopt new ethical rules or to hold faculty members to account.

“How long does it have to go on before it actually is stopped? One way to stop it would be if the actual authors were punished in some way,” said Dr. Carl Elliott, a professor at the Center for Bioethics of the University of Minnesota. “But the academics who are complicit in it all never seem to be punished at all.”

The full scope of the ghostwriting problem is still unclear, but recent revelations suggest that the practice is widespread. Dozens of medical education companies across the country draft scientific papers at the behest of drug makers. And placing such papers in medical journals has become a fundamental marketing practice for most of the large pharmaceutical companies."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/health/research/19ethics.html

If a student cheats on a paper, s/he is expelled.
If his professor puts his name on a Pharma PR release and passes it off as "research", he's in the clear.

[Voice for Peace]

1. yeah. k/r

[kenfrequed]

2. Universities have become one stop shops for big pharm

They get access to government grants for researchers doing work on their products.

They get access to ultra-cheap lab tech staff.

They get access to labs and big names in the field.

And the universities aren't too demanding in royalties...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. My doc (who is also my boss)

says that Big Pharma is insidious in the ways it gets to MDs, starting in medical school. They put down natural remedies and supplements, wanting doctors to only use drugs to treat conditions when a change in diet or simple (and cheap) supplementation would do the trick. Doc isn't well liked by many because of her stand on things. She's also for the health bill and the public option--she's been asked to be on our Congressman's panel at a forum next Monday. Since our member of the House is a conservative Republican, I don't expect her to have an easy time of it. I'll be going to support her--anyone near Harrison Arkansas, pm me for the details.