The collection and distribution of medical research has essentially been privatized, and the corporations with the strongest stake in the outcomes continue to exert profound pressures to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.
Case in point, the epilepsy drug Neurontin:
The drug maker Pfizer earlier this decade manipulated the publication of scientific studies to bolster the use of its epilepsy drug Neurontin for other disorders, while suppressing research that did not support those uses, according to experts who reviewed thousands of company documents for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the company.
Pfizer’s tactics included delaying the publication of studies that had found no evidence the drug worked for some other disorders, “spinning” negative data to place it in a more positive light, and bundling negative findings with positive studies to neutralize the results, according to written reports by the experts, who analyzed the documents at the request of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
It gets worse from there. I encourage you to read the whole article. This is truly privatization run amok.
Advertisement
