How drug companies get the clinical trial results they want

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Carolyn Thomas

Every prescription drug (or over-the-counter medication) in your bathroom cabinet is there because it’s been evaluated in research called a clinical trial. For a basic introduction to clinical trials, let’s turn to former editor-in-chief of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell, who wrote the following in her frightening landmark piece called “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption” (New York Review of Books, 1/15/2009):

“Before a new drug can enter the market, its manufacturer must sponsor clinical trials to show the Food and Drug Administration that the drug is safe and effective, usually as compared with a placebo or dummy pill.

“The results of all the trials (there may be many) are submitted to the FDA, and if one or two trials are positive – that is, they show effectiveness without serious risk – the drug is usually approved, even if all the other trials are negative.”

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Does the medical profession need to wean itself from its “pervasive dependence” on Big Pharma money?

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Carolyn Thomas

“Judges do not hear cases in which they have a financial interest. Reporters do not write stories about companies in which they have a financial interest. By the same token, doctors should not have a financial interest in treatments they are evaluating, or accept gifts from the makers of drugs they prescribe.”

That’s what Dr. Marcia Angell says, and she ought to know. She spent over 20 years as editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. She wrote these words last January in a letter to Dr. Nada Stotland, president of the American Psychiatric Association in response to Stotland’s criticisms of her essay in the New York Review of Books.

Back then, the editorial board at the New York Times had decreed:

“The medical profession needs to wean itself almost entirely from its pervasive dependence on industry money.”

Dr. Angell agreed with the Times, adding:

“Pervasive conflicts of interest corrupt the medical profession, not in a criminal sense, but in the sense of undermining the impartiality that is essential both to medical research and clinical practice.”

Dr. Angell disagreed strongly with psychiatrist Dr. Stotland’s assertion that very few drugs of any kind have been tested on children. Not so, claims Dr. Angell. Continue reading →

“Where There’s Smoke, There’s Pfizer”: growing protests against appointment of Big Pharma exec to research funding agency

Posted on December 12, 2009 by Carolyn Thomas

This news could be compared to inviting the fox to be in charge of the henhouse. Except that it’s more like inviting the fox right into the henhouse to relax, put up his feet, and help himself to a three-year supply of Buffalo wings. That’s why opposition continues to mount this week against the Canadian government’s questionable appointment of a top pharmaceutical executive to the council governing Canada’s largest health research agency. Thousands of people, including several prominent medical ethicists and researchers, have signed a petition this week calling for the withdrawal of the appointment of Dr. Bernard Prigent, vice-president and medical director of Pfizer Canada, to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, which has a $1-billion annual budget funding the work of thousands of medical researchers across Canada.

The publicly-funded CIHR awards grants to researchers across the country working in health and medicine. Its governing council consists mainly of scientists, medical practitioners and health administrators drawn from Canadian universities. And now, drawn from Big Pharma too. Continue reading →