This adds to our knowledge about the pervasiveness of the influence of vested interests (usually interests in selling goods or services) through often deceptive marketing and public relations campaigns on clinical research, ostensibly scholarly journals and publications, and medical education.  This pervasiveness has reached plague like proportions here in the States, but I suspect things are not much better elsewhere.  See our blog post on Health Care Renewal:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2012/10/marketers-systemic-influence-over.html

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 7:48 PM, Ash Paul <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

Dear colleagues,

 

This story is in MedPage Today:

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PainManagement/BackPain/35551

 

You can access/download the hugely damning US Senate Finance Committee Report on Medtronic here; the weblinks might change soon, so those interested might wish to download the 2315 page document straight away:

Related Files

Printer-Friendly Version [387.9 KB]

 

Staff Report on Medtronic’s Influence on Infuse Clinical Studies (Print 112-38) [154.91 MB]

 

Those of you living in the UK, might remember the allegedly ignomious role played by the PR firm Ketchum in promoting Herceptin in the UK in 2006 before it was licensed.  They were the ones behind the organisation of the famous Herceptin march through Stoke by breast cancer sufferers.

Ref:

http://crisisprandmanagement.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/controversial-drug-supported-by.html

 

According to the US Senate Report on Infuse, Ketchum were the PR advisors for Medtronic in this case as well. Some things never appear to change!!!

 

Regards,

 

Ash

 

--
Roy M. Poses MD FACP
President
Foundation for Integrity and Responsibility in Medicine (FIRM)
[log in to unmask]
Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine
Alpert Medical School, Brown University
[log in to unmask]