A philosopher’s take on Big Pharma marketing

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Carolyn Thomas

You may not expect to find an ivory tower academic whose erudite specialty is philosophy hanging out at drug marketing conferences, but that’s where you would have found Dr. Sergio Sismondo a few years ago. The professor of philosophy at my old stomping ground, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, turned up at the annual meeting of the International Society of Medical Planning Professionals, one of two large organizations representing medical communications firms.

A medical communications firm is a business that sells services to pharmaceutical and other companies for “managing” the publication and placement of scientific research papers for maximal marketing impact, often running a full publicity campaign to help sell the drug being “studied”. This is an alarmingly widespread practice in which drug companies essentially decide what your physician will end up reading in medical journals. Continue reading →

“Integrity in Science” – who’s paying the piper?

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Carolyn Thomas

UPDATE: The Integrity in Science database is no longer posted on the CSPI website. See ProPublica’s “Dollars For Docs: How Industry Money Reaches Physicians“ site for comparable financial conflict of interest lists.

Looking for a luscious way to noodle away an hour this weekend? Check out the Center for Science in the Public Interest and their Integrity In Science conflict-of-interest project. But before you back away slowly for something more exciting like organizing the sock drawer, consider this: there is strong evidence that researchers’ financial ties to chemical, pharmaceutical, or tobacco manufacturers directly influence their published positions in supporting the benefit or downplaying the harm of the manufacturers’ product.

In other words, as a heart attack survivor whose doctor has prescribed a fistful of meds, I have no clue which of those drugs has been recommended based on flawed research or tainted journal papers that have essentially been bought and paid for by the drug company who made them. And, worse, neither do my doctors.

So to check who’s taking money from whom, you can now visit the Integrity in Science database and find out for yourself. Continue reading →

Doctors on the take: how to read the fine print in medical research reports

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Carolyn Thomas

I was doing a little light reading in the Archives of Internal Medicine the other day. A study reported there in June looked at what researchers have inaccurately dubbed the Eco-Atkins Diet, which they claim replaces the low-carb, dangerously high-saturated fat meat protein of the old Atkins Diet with low-carb, low saturated fat vegetable-based protein – such as soybeans, legumes and nuts.

The more I read, the better I liked what I was reading. The study showed that the vegetable-based protein-eating participants not only successfully lost weight on this new Eco-Atkins Diet, but they showed greater reductions in their LDL (bad) cholesterol levels than the control group.

Isn’t this fabulous news for those of us wanting to lose weight as well as improve our heart health? Well, maybe not. Continue reading →