OT: medical journals become increasingly irrelevant

From: tcomeau (tunderbar_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/29/04 

Date: 29 Nov 2004 12:43:10 -0800

http://www.newstarget.com/001890.html

Monday, November 29, 2004 commentary:
Scientific medical journals like JAMA fail basic credibility
standards; medical journals become increasingly irrelevant
The Journal of the American Medical Association -- JAMA -- and other
scientific medical journals have been caught red-handed by the Center
for Science in the Public Interest for failing to disclose the
financial relationships between study authors and companies that might
benefit from such studies. For example, one author of a study
published in JAMA that conducted research on kidney disease did not
disclose that he is a consultant paid by Merck, Bristol-Meyers,
Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer, all of which have products that
could be marketed to the public based on the information presented in
the study.
 
Here's how the con works: the study author receives cash from these
pharmaceutical companies, gets his study published in a prestigious
scientific journal, and then the drug companies can state that they
are basing the marketing of their product on published, peer-reviewed
scientific facts. The hidden fact in all of this, of course, is that
the author of the study is on the payroll of these companies and
didn't even bother to disclose that relationship to the journal. It's
good old fashioned corruption... but with the stamp of approval from
so-called "modern science."

It isn't just this one study, either -- a review of JAMA articles by
the CSPI revealed that 11.3% of the articles reviewed had
non-disclosed conflicts of interest. For a journal that claims to be
presenting scientific truth in a non-biased way that is independent of
pharmaceutical company influence, that's an alarmingly high number.
And, of course, it's one of the reasons why these scientific journals
are increasingly considered to be lacking in scientific credibility
today. A number of journals were caught in the same study, revealing
that this failure to disclose conflicts of interest is not merely
something that happens at the American Medical Association, but
something that is widespread in the conventional medical community.

None of this comes as a surprise to me, since I've been one of the
most outspoken critics of scientific journals for many years. Too many
of these journals are masquerading as stewards of good science -- they
pretend to show articles that are well-researched, that are authored
by people who have no financial interest in their publication, and
that have been put through a rigorous quality control process known as
peer review. But in fact what you often find in these journals is the
exclusion of articles that talk about alternative therapies or
pioneering therapies that compete with pharmaceutical profits. You
also find a closed network of old school, closed-minded, conventional
researchers and medical doctors who primarily use the journals to
protect their own belief systems by only allowing the publication of
articles that agree with their narrow beliefs. In that regard, it's
more like a dogma or a religion than a scientific community.

Often, the so-called scientific truth presented by these journals is
really just a relative truth that has been invented by a circle of
influential doctors, researchers and journal editors who define
scientific truth by choosing what to publish (and what to ignore). So,
it is a rather obvious case of circular reasoning on their side. In
other words, to put it more plainly, it's true if they say it is, and
if they reject a paper, then it's not true. Scientific fact is
whatever they tell you it should be.

But that philosophy stands at odds with true science. True science is
based on a demonstrated curiosity about the way nature and the
universe works. A true scientist would look at the relationships
between the consumption of water and human health and they might ask,
"What is the role of water in the human body?" Or they might look at
plants and observe the miraculous nature of how plants are tiny
pharmaceutical factories that convert vitamins and minerals, sunlight,
and carbon dioxide into powerful medicinal compounds that can enhance
human health. True scientists would look at the nature of
relationships and how people who have more friends and engage in more
social activities tend to live healthier, longer lives than those who
don't. Those are the kinds of activities that true scientists pursue,
because they are curious about the way the world works and how human
beings can take advantage of natural laws in order to enhance their
health and quality of life.

But those aren't the kinds of topics that these so-called conventional
medical scientists pursue. They pursue topics like, "How do we cure
cancer with nanotechnology?" or "How do we override the body's immune
system and interfere with it using toxic chemicals that poison the
body?" They might say, "How do we take this patented drug that nobody
else can legally sell, and market it to the entire world by inventing
a disease, such as social anxiety disorder, and then sell the drug at
monopoly prices to people while confiscating imported generic versions
of that drug from another country?" Those are the kinds of activities
that many of today's conventional scientists, doctors and
pharmaceutical executives pursue, and it's all one big school of
people who are essentially serving their own interests while invoking
-- in a blasphemous way -- so-called "science."

The bottom line to all of this is that the game is up -- these
journals are starting to be exposed for their deceit and their lack of
open-mindedness, as well as their failure to disclose the financial
ties between authors and pharmaceutical companies that benefit from
the publication of authors' studies.

And by the way, I almost forgot to mention that most of these
scientific journals are, in fact, supported by advertising funds from
pharmaceutical companies. So, you have a direct financial link from
pharmaceutical companies to these journals, such as the Journal of the
American Medical Association, and then you have the journals either
neglecting, or even perhaps suppressing the disclosure of financial
ties between authors of articles they publish and the very same
pharmaceutical companies that are writing checks to the journals. I'm
sure the American Medical Association realizes that publishing JAMA is
a highly profitable business activity. It generates a lot of money,
and one has to wonder about the priority of that money when you're
standing in front of the pharmaceutical executive who's handing you a
check for $100,000 or $1,000,000 (or some amount that's even larger).

Personally, I don't trust any scientific publication that survives
based on advertising revenues from pharmaceutical companies. The
conflict of interest is so obvious as to be utterly ridiculous -- the
journals need to keep their financial lifelines alive, and that means
supporting pharmaceutical companies that keep on sending them checks.
In that kind of system, there is no such thing as credibility. You
can't have an unbiased publication of any kind if you're dependent on
advertising revenues paid directly to you by the very same companies
you're supposed to be covering in the editorial content. These medical
journals are, effectively, bought out by the financial interests of
Big Pharma.

And, by the way, the whole concept of a medical journal is
increasingly irrelevant these days anyway. Thanks to the internet and
the launching of an open-source medical journal endeavor, we all have
the capacity to participate in open databases of clinical studies. We
don't need to be reading niche journals that are financed by
pharmaceutical companies and still charge readers hundreds or
thousands of dollars a year for access to their articles. What we need
in this country is open, public access to all of the trials and
studies that are being conducted, and we need a more open-minded,
web-based journal system, where pioneering researchers and those who
are engaged in activities outside conventional medicine can get solid,
scientific work published, regardless of whether it threatens the
profits of drug companies.

******

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