You're a doctor, an expert in your field. A drug company asks you to review a drug they are working on. You do and think that the drug has promise. The drug company pays you some money along the way and promises more as you speak and write about the drug. So, you conduct a study of the drug and publish your findings. How do you ensure yourself and the readers that the study is really impartial, is not tainted by your being paid by the drug company?
Clearly, this issue is not new, but it has become more prominent over the past year or two. It even made the lead article in The Wall Street Journal. February's Journal of the AMA carried an article about taking antidepressants during pregnancy. Previous studies had concluded that women should not take the drugs. This study concluded the opposite. The authors had sixty different relationships with drug companies who produced antidepressants; the authors did not disclose these ties to the editors of the AMA Journal. Did they do they right thing?
Mass. General Hospital makes money from an organization called the Psychiatry Academy. This is funded by six drug companies, two of whom make antidepressants. Are their lectures and presentations biased?
1 comment:
The problem is, whenever any money changes hands we can never be sure.
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