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Amazing people refuse to look at info just because they don't know the website. That thinking perpetuates ignorance.
Marcia Angell, former EIC of the New England Journal of Medicine, has spoken at length and written at least one book about the handshake wink wink relationship between the drug companies and the *respected* medical journals.
If you wish to learn about the subject perhaps Dr. Angell's work will be more to the liking of those who don't want to clink on the link the OP posted. Every doctor who publishes is paid in some way by the pharma company who creates the drug the doctor is supporting. This has been proved again and again.
Well I got down to the section discussing ibuprofen and aspirin and Celebrex and Vioxx...my eyes were getting buggy so I have to stop there.
The article is 14 years old. It expressed a valid criticism, but it is now out of date.
Every medical article published now will include a description of the source of funding (if any) and any potential conflicts of interest of the authors. Note the word potential. It is fine to read an article with the funding in mind, but it is not all right to dismiss the findings based solely on the source of funding.
For example, this study compared two treatments for hypothyroidism. The study medications were provided by a drug company.
"Disclosure: Merck S/A, Brazil, provided Novothyral and Euthyrox capsules. Merck S/A, Brazil, had no role in study design, data analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the manuscript, or decision to submit the manuscript for publication. All authors had and have full access to the study data."
By the way, when you start a new thread it would be helpful for your initial post to be more than a link and a statement that you read part of the link and will post more later. Include something of substance in the OP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newtovenice
Every doctor who publishes is paid in some way by the pharma company who creates the drug the doctor is supporting. This has been proved again and again.
That is absolutely false. For one thing, not every article published about a particular drug "supports" it. Negative findings get published, too.
Much drug research after the initial testing done to get the drug approved is done without industry funding.
"The pharmaceutical industry is the largest contributor towards funding research, funding over 60 percent. The government contributes to about a third of the costs, with foundations, advocacy organizations and individual donors responsible for the remaining investments."
How would you replace the 60% that is provided by the pharmaceutical industry? Would you be willing to see your federal income tax bill increase in order to do it?
Moderator cut: Don't ask if someone contributes money. Too personal.
Last edited by in_newengland; 12-13-2017 at 03:36 PM..
There are so many sources for health information that conflict with each other even within the same disciplines. One study contradicting the previous, over and over. We forget that knowledge is never complete. It is constantly being built. Because of this I find that reading "all around" about a topic helps me filter out the more bizarre sources or conclusions. I don't read just one source, on study, one school of thought. I read all I can find. Even sources I am pretty sure I won't agree with. You never know just where that thunderbolt of understanding will come from. The more I read about some topic the better I understand it; both the obvious truths and the biased falsehoods. When I come across technical stuff I don't understand, I read further out. Dive into the biology or the chemistry so that my own personal filters are working better.
When reading scientific studies, a couple things should be kept in mind:
"Peer review" depends on who is doing the reviewing-- a reviewer solidly entrenched in the "consensus" is having his reputation invalidated if he allows a paper to be published that goes against the consensus. How altruistic do you expect him to be?
It's not bad that drug companies pay for research and then publish the studies that help them out. The problem comes when they don't publish a study that doesn't support their product.
Beware of papers that report "Relative Risk Reduction"-- that's a way of cheating to make a single digit result look like a double digit (more impressive) result. Check the Absolute Risk Reduction....NEJM just reported a study that made the headlines about risk of breast cancer in those using BCP. They reported a "38%" increase in risk. It turns out that they found 58 Ca cases for every 100,000 woman-yrs of BCP compared to only 55/100,000 for non-users. BFD. There's a difference between statistical significance and clinical (ie- practical) significance.
Caveat lector.
If you torture the numbers long enough, you can get them to confess to anything.
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