Scientific Opinions — For Sale

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From Medium: “This is where evidence based medicine is supposed to shine, by demanding randomized trials to prove that certain procedures/drugs either work or don’t. Great, right? Well, not so much. The problem is when all of these trials are paid for by industry, then the evidence is severely biased. If the evidence base is biased, then evidence based medicine is completely worthless. It’s one thing to say that Harvard researchers proved that XYZ drug cures cancer. We might believe this. But, it’s another thing to say that XYZ drug maker proved that their drug cures cancer. In this case, almost none of us believe it. The solution, if you are XYZ drug maker? Simple. Pay Harvard researchers millions of $$$ to do a study, but bias it so severely that it is a virtual certainty that XYZ drug looks like it works. Then claim that it was the Harvard researcher who proved XYZ drug cures cancer.”

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2 COMMENTS

  1. This article shows that fraud is present not only in psychiatry but throughout medicine. The writer is correct. It’s very difficult to accept much of medical research because it’s funded by the pharmaceutical industry. This industry also pays off “respected” medical journals, physicians, researchers, federal and state government officials, congressmen, and medical associations.

    In spite of all this, there are people, even in industry, who do try to do the right thing. But some are blatant in their acceptance of the fraud. As one commentator to this article said: Integrity doesn’t pay the bills. “Sorry, kids, we lost the house. Mr. Integrity here isn’t getting any more research projects.” (got 3 likes). Too many others try to delude themselves into believing they really are unbiased when they obviously are not.

    It will be very difficult to correct the wrongs being perpetrated in psychiatry when the corruption is so widespread, but we have to try.

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