[Foundation-l] Misplaced Reliance, was Re: Paid editing, was Re: Ban and...

[Arlen Beiler]

Precisely my feeling on this. I just recently read that out of over 40
studies on something, only ~7 claimed they had no ill side effects (6 of
those being FDA tests). I don't remember where I saw it, but that is
basically how it was, I think. It is common knowledge that manufacture
funded research is much less critical, and sometimes the results are totally
different from what the recipients experience. That is probably why people
thought it would be bad-mouthing to say that the manufacture funded the
research.

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 12:36 PM, <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:

>
> No one disputed that drug companies are required to pay for research when
> they are trying to get a new drug approved.
> The statement is dispute however, is where Anne stated that "the drug
> company always pays for research".  This is false.
> The correct statement would probably be "the drug company is required to
> pay for research when they are trying to get a new drug approved".
> These statements are not equivalent.
>
> There have been plenty of studies on drugs, which were not paid for, by
> anyone with a vested monetary interest in changing the drug's market
> outlook.
> Being flippant as John was, hardly forwards the conversation.
>
> Not qualifying *which* studies were paid for by someone with a vested
> interest, and which were paid for by someone without that interest,
> degrades our
> articles on drugs.  Whether or not guns kill or people kill does not mean
> we
> should be taking a moral position on the use to which guns are put.
>
> We are journalists, we are encyclopedists, we are not put here, by God, to
> determine and shape the form of thought in our reader's minds.  We should,
> in my opinion, be giving our readers the benefit of the doubt that they
> have
> an IQ over 75 and can figure out how to use the information given.  To
> assume that our information is going to be used nefariously and thus that
> we must
> censor that, is I believe, the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
>
> Rather than limiting what we say, we should expand and explode it to the
> mind where the readers go insane from the sheer overload of detail.
> Insanity is our goal.  Not robotism.
>
> W
>