Reading: AIDS Activists Issue Grades to Drug Companies

Merck paid Elsevier to brand fake peer-reviewed journal

Merck paid medical publisher Elsevier to publish a few volumes of Merck-favored research with the appearance of a serious peer-reviewed journal.

 

Instead, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine was in effect just company-sponsored marketing material without the sponsorship disclosure.

 

While the serious ethical breach by Merck is receiving much attention, I'd like to draw attention also to the bizarre ethical breach by the publisher.

 

Elsevier has a reputation as a serious publisher of peer-reviewed science, technical and medical journals. It knew that by attaching its name to this journal it would lead people into assuming that the same standards would apply to the information and views it contained.

 

Elsevier has a responsibility for its mind print. The information that it publishes can and will be taken and used for better or worse. Elsevier's corporate social responsibility page, however, prefers to talk about philanthropic and environmental initiatives.

 

Time for them to re-center on why they exist. Clue: it was not to squeeze an extra bit of revenue out of their brand by lending credence to Merck's blindingly unethical misstep.

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Corporations like things just as they are, thanks

US-based corporations are intensifying their lobbying of Congress in light of the Obama Administration's scrutiny of corporate tax deferral, under which rules corporations avoid paying income tax by parking their profits offshore in tax havens. 

 

Opponents of deferral say it provides incentives for corporates to move jobs and operations overseas and costs the US billions in tax revenue that must be compensated for by emptying the pockets of individuals.  Corporations claim that deferral is only fair since other countries allow their corporates to avoid taxation at home, too. 

 

Wall St Journal: "In recent days, groups including the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Foreign Trade Council have helped form a lobbying coalition called Protect America's Competitive Edge that is devoted specifically to the issue. A letter sent to Congress last month opposing the plan was signed by 200 trade associations and companies, including General Electric Co., Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp., McDonald's Corp., Merck & Co. and Microsoft Corp."

 

What they'll say in the event of an international agreement to crack down on tax havens, who knows.

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Merck gives experimental Malaria drug to non-profit

Merck & Co retains the option to partner with the not-for-profit, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) after testing.

 

According to the Reuters report, Merck has granted the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) an exclusive, royalty-free license to develop a compound discovered by Merck's scientists.

 

It looks as if Merck is simply outsourcing research to an organisation that is specifically funded for that purpose - an organisation which does not have to demonstrate market level investment returns on its research expenditure. Is this a smart way of bringing drugs to market aimed at the world's poor?

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Vioxx and Celebrex study data faked

Twenty one drug studies undertaken by an acute pain specialist at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., were based on faked data.

Doctor Scott S. Reuben's research provided favorable results on Pfizer’s Bextra and Merck’s Vioxx, both painkillers that have since been pulled from the market, reports the Wall Street Journal Blog.

His research has been highly influential, doctors contacted by the newspaper said.

From the Wall Street Journal blog:

"Pfizer had funded some of Reuben’s research and had also paid him to speak on behalf of its medicines. “It is very disappointing to learn about Dr. Scott Reuben’s alleged actions,” Pfizer said in a statement to WSJ. “When we decided to support Dr. Reuben’s research, he worked for a credible academic medical center and appeared to be a reputable investigator.”"

Seems like a testament to the corrupting power of Big Pharma's marketing money.

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Med students react to Big Pharma's influence on courses

A movement is growing at Harvard Medical School to bring corporate influence over the curriculum into the open and under control.

The School received an "F" grade from the American Medical Students Association for its monitoring and control of drug industry money. Yale scored a "C", University of Pennsylvania an "A" and Stanford a "B".

From the New York Times report:

"David Tian, 24, a first-year Harvard Medical student, said: “Before coming here, I had no idea how much influence companies had on medical education. And it’s something that’s purposely meant to be under the table, providing information under the guise of education when that information is also presented for marketing purposes.”
...
no one disputes that many individual Harvard Medical faculty members receive tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year through industry consulting and speaking fees. Under the school’s disclosure rules, about 1,600 of 8,900 professors and lecturers have reported to the dean that they or a family member had a financial interest in a business related to their teaching, research or clinical care. The reports show 149 with financial ties to Pfizer and 130 with Merck."

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