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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsScientific American: Many Antidepressant Studies Found Tainted by Pharma Company Influence
A review of studies that assess clinical antidepressants shows hidden conflicts of interest and financial ties to corporate drugmakersScientific American | Roni Jacobson | October 21, 2015
After many lawsuits and a 2012 U.S. Department of Justice settlement, last month an independent review found that antidepressant drug Paxil (paroxetine) is not safe for teenagers. The finding contradicts the conclusions of the initial 2001 drug trial, which the manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline had funded, then used its results to market Paxil as safe for adolescents.
The original trial, known as Study 329, is but one high-profile example of pharmaceutical industry influence known to pervade scientific research, including clinical trials the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires pharma companies to fund in order to assess their products. For that reason, people who read scientific papers as part of their jobs have come to rely on meta-analyses, supposedly thorough reviews summarizing the evidence from multiple trials, rather than trust individual studies. But a new analysis casts doubt on that practice as well, finding that the vast majority of meta-analyses of antidepressants have some industry link, with a corresponding suppression of negative results.
The latest study, published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, which evaluated 185 meta-analyses, found that one third of them were written by pharma industry employees. We knew that the industry would fund studies to promote its products, but its very different to fund meta-analyses, which have traditionally been a bulwark of evidence-based medicine, says John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University School of Medicine and co-author of the study. Its really amazing that there is such a massive influx of influence in this field.
Almost 80 percent of meta-analyses in the review had some sort of industry tie, either through sponsorship, which the authors defined as direct industry funding of the study, or conflicts of interest, defined as any situation in which one or more authors were either industry employees or independent researchers receiving any type of industry support (including speaking fees and research grants). Especially troubling, the study showed about 7 percent of researchers had undisclosed conflicts of interest. Theres a certain pecking order of papers, says Erick Turner, a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University who was not associated with the research. Meta-analyses are at the top of the evidence pyramid. Turner was very concerned by the results but did not find them surprising. Industry influence is just massive. Whats really new is the level of attention people are now paying to it. SNIP
MORE: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/many-antidepressant-studies-found-tainted-by-pharma-company-influence/
When they can't fudge the studies, they use bribes
Big Pharma's Pathetic Medical Bribes are Quite Profitable
Pharmaceutical companies are low-balling how much they pay doctors by misspelling the names of their drugs in their reports to the federal government.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/big-pharma-simple-trick-obscuring-medical-bribes
Search "pharmaceutical + bribes"
https://www.google.com/search?q=pharmaceutical+bribes
About 281,000 results
Is there NO ONE that can stop this insanity?
DJ13
(23,671 posts)Why do you hate free markets?!
(K&R)
Marie Marie
(9,999 posts)apparently not. They are completely out of control and I don't see anything coming along to change that. They have us by the throat because we do need some of their products and they know that. We desperately need new antibiotics but -pffft- not enough profit in that. So they keep coming out with poison (all the better if it is addictive) and convincing us that we need this poison. They own the politicians and the FDA. Insanity indeed!
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)the sound of money!"
greymattermom
(5,751 posts)researchers need funding. Where else is there?
demigoddess
(6,640 posts)on tv. after a while, you see most drugs seem to be scams.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)It's all safe because Science!
Any input from the GMO defenders? Bueller?
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)anything with sugar that is not cane sugar is most likely GMO. Corn syrup? GMO- it's in EVERYTHING. Soybean oil? No problem! It's been "tested" by industry shills.
One day a headline will read:
Scientific American: Many Antidepressant GMO Studies Found Tainted by Pharma BIG AGRO Company Influence
And those that bashed and ridiculed GMO skeptics will be as quiet as mice in church. People that can't learn from the past are a detriment to society.
We can all expect promises to be broken, because we don't just tolerate it- we reward it. Disgusting.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)bbgrunt
(5,281 posts)to vaccinate their children or deride climate change. When science can be bought like everything else we all lose.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)disagree with them) ARE the ones causing the warming skepticism: that's also why "movement skepticism" is so open to AGW deniers and "race realists"
there was a lot of giggling when Neil Tyson warned us about corporate science and got all dewy-eyed over Clair Patterson: a 1991 Tyson would've sounded a bit more Kehoe (for all his Sagan-derived hippieness)
even the MJ article on this drew Kevin Folta and his "we're SO not shills like those people: Good ScienceTM always wins!" flacks
appalachiablue
(41,047 posts)nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)Seems to be a lack of interest from those who worship the new religion of Science. Ignoring things doesn't make them go away.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)For they only want to do good, they never have any ulterior motives nor conflicts.