Contrasts...

USA Today, April 16, 2008 (front page): Reports: Data on Vioxx Misused

Corporate and government documents from Vioxx lawsuits indicate that the drug’s maker, Merck & Co., apparently downplayed evidence showing the painkiller tripled the risk of death in Alzheimer’s-prone patients, researchers report today.
...
(para #3): Doctors involved in the analyses, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, some of whom serve as plantiffs’ witnesses, say...

The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2008 (page B-4, Corporate News): Merck's Publishing Ethics Are Questioned by Studies

Two medical-journal studies suggest Merck & Co. violated scientific-publishing ethics by ghostwriting dozens of academic articles, and minimized the impact of patient deaths in its analyses of some human trials of a top-selling drug later linked to cardiac problems.
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(para #4): The studies appear in Wednesday’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Five of the papers’ six authors served as paid consultants to plantiffs’ lawyers in Vioxx lawsuits...

O.G.’s comments:
• Note the weasel words in the USA Today story: Documents “indicate” that Merck “apparently” downplayed evidence. Is there any fire here, or is it all smoke?
• And speaking of appearance of impropriety, USA Today– in this day, when cigarette companies can’t be trusted to fund cancer research, and when environmental studies paid for by chemical companies are suspect, shouldn’t the fact that the majority of these studies’ authors derived income from the plantiffs’ bar as consultants against Merck be of interest to your readers?

USA Today also offers this, from JAMA editor Catherine DeAngelis:

“I’ve been... watching physicians and clinical researchers be[ing] used by pharmaceutical companies... It’s time to stop.”

Sounds like somebody with an agenda. Should we take this to mean that in the future the Journal of the American Medical Association is to be deemed as trustworthy as The Lancet?

Posted by: Old Grouch in The Press at 18:06:57 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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