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

[George Herbert]

On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 1:54 PM, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 14:19, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> We would not allow the people who make Coca Cola to be our sole
>>> sources on whether it's safe, or on whether we all ought to be
>>> drinking it. But when it comes to drugs and scientists, we lose sight
>>> of the fact that there is often a very strong conflict of interest.
>>>
>>> Sarah
>>
>> There's a societal problem there; we don't independently pay for many
>> scientific grade studies on medications.  There are some - but the
>> bulk of them are done by the drug companies in the course of getting
>> drugs studied and approved, and then as ongoing due dilligence as
>> they're used.
>>
>
> There's an interesting article here: Angell, Marcia.
> "Industry-Sponsored Clinical Research. A Broken System", The Journal
> of the American Medical Association, September 3, 2008
> http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/300/9/1069
>
> She writes: "Over the past 2 decades, the pharmaceutical industry has
> gained unprecedented control over the evaluation of its own products.
> Drug companies now finance most clinical research on prescription
> drugs, and there is mounting evidence that they often skew the
> research they sponsor to make their drugs look better and safer."
>
> I think we need to take very seriously that we're allowing a lot of
> our science articles to be sourced entirely to studies paid for by big
> corporations selling products.

The proper way to fight that problem - which is legitimately a problem
- is societally, in getting alternately funded drug studies going with
independent researchers.

It's not to open Wikipedia to poorly sourced, ancedotal evidence that
is not medically supportable.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com