Experts Conclude Pfizer Manipulated Studies

The New York Times has a very informative article today on Big Pharma manipulation of drug study publishing.

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.

Other tidbits include hiring ghostwriters to write scientific articles and then hiring big-name doctors to sign off, and some really nice smoking-gun memos about postponing publishing studies until nearer the end of patent protection:

“If Pfizer wants to use, present and publish this comparative data analysis in which two of the five studies compared make the overall picture look bad, how do we make it sound better than it looks on the graphs?” the medical writer asked.

I know this info won't surprise anyone on ATS -- I think we all know that pharmaceutical companies are out to protect the bottom line before they worry about little things like accuracy or good medicine. But I thought I'd contribute a bit of evidence that sometimes they get their pants sued off for it

This is another head of the hydra... Big Pharma - where the doctors care more about the money than the medicine.

University researchers go along with this farce in order to placate their masters, they live for the funding....

Sad, sad.