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December 13, 2005
Pushing pills for fun and profit
You've got to give it to those international drug companies. They're super-helpful. First they help people pop pills by teaching them to pester their doctors, then they help doctors push pills. Now, according to the Wall St Journal, they help researchers write articles [PAY WALL] for medical journals that promote the merits of their products. According to the article, "Many of the articles that appear in scientific journals under the bylines of prominent academics are actually written by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies. These seemingly objective articles, which doctors around the world use to guide their care of patients, are often part of a marketing campaign by companies to promote a product or play up the condition it treats."
Maybe we shouldn't trust the medical profession as much as we do, given that at every point of potential ethical strain, they seem to succumb.
But don't expect anything to happen, just because the WSJ runs the story on page one. The New York Times wrote about much the same racket three years ago. The drug industry just got better at it.
Posted by cw at December 13, 2005 11:21 PM