Greetings, Folks,
Today's "Sunday Times" carries the story below.
This looks grave. I missed the original happening.
Does anyone have pointers to
a) The story of the "case where Pharmacia was accused
of duping JAMA" last year?
b) Details of the steps being taken by the Lancet,
BMJ, JAMA etc. to see that "the researchers involved
are guaranteed scientific independence", failing which
"Medical editors around the world will now refuse from
next month to print drug-company sponsored studies"?
With thanks,
Ted.
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"Sunday Times", Aug 12 20001
Move to open all drug test results
Jonathan Leake and Kevin Dowling
THE world's most prominent medical journals, including
The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, have joined
forces to stop drug firms "cheating" on medical studies
and refusing to publish bad results.
The move follows a case where Pharmacia, which owns Monsanto,
the GM seed firm, last year was accused of duping the Journal
of the American Medical Association (JAMA) into publishing
favourable results from a study of the arthritis drug Celebrex.
The six-month study on 8,000 patients claimed Celebrex was
associated with lower rates of stomach and intestinal ulcers
than two other older arthritis medicines. In fact, the study
took a year and the final results showed that almost all of the
ulcer complications occurring in the second, unpublished half,
were in Celebrex users.
Medical editors around the world will now refuse from next month
to print drug-company sponsored studies unless the researchers
involved are guaranteed scientific independence. One described the
action as an attempt to "give scientists clout with drug companies".
Dr Michael Wolfe, an American expert in the field, who had given
the study a favourable review in the JAMA, said: "I thought I was
looking at a completely different study. The politically correct
term is data discrepancy - but I call it scientific fraud.
I believe Pharmacia cheated."
Steven Geis, a vice-president for clinical research of Pharmacia
and one of the authors of the study, said that only the first six
months of data were presented because, after that, more patients
withdrew from the comparison groups than from the Celebrex group,
biasing later findings. "The intention really was not to be
deceptive in any way," he said.
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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <[log in to unmask]>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972
Date: 12-Aug-01 Time: 14:10:35
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