Big Money, Bad Medicine [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
"It's been pretty well established that publication bias [3] is associated with industry funding," says Brown University epidemiologist Kay Dickersin, about drug companies squashing unfavorable research results [4]. Yet the "overwhelming majority" of drug researchers receive industry funding, according to Canadian clinical pharmacist Muhammad Mamdani. The drug industry trade group PhRMA [5] agreed in 2002 to voluntary rules in which companies promise they "will not suppress or veto publications." New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer thinks those rules aren't working; he filed a lawsuit [6] against GlaxoSmithKline [7] charging that the company sought to "manage the dissemination of data" on the potential hazards of prescribing the antidepressant Paxil to children. GlaxoSmithKline contends it has "acted responsibly [8]."