From an AP story: Industry-funded research disputes grow:
- Dr. Aubrey Blumsohn was stunned: Research results were submitted to a scientific meeting under his name, yet the British bone specialist insists he not only hadn't written or reviewed the report, he wasn't sure it was accurate.
The incident turned into a public feud when Blumsohn charged that the U.S. drug company paying for the study rebuffed his attempts to analyze the data.
It's the latest in a string of controversies about pharmaceutical industry control of medical research, from hidden antidepressant risks to the undercounting of heart attacks in a critical study of the painkiller Vioxx.
Whoever pays for medical research - not necessarily the scientists who do the work - controls what doctors, and the public, learn about its outcome. Scientific journals, including one that published some of the reports Blumsohn now questions, are grappling anew with how to ensure that they print complete results.
I just felt sick to my stomach at some of the things I learned while researching this article for Medical Meetings and how all this could impact CME. I'm sure it doesn't happen often, but these are the folks making headlines, and all the good work done by honest researchers, backed by companies that really want to improve the public health as well as make a buck goes for naught.
