Senate Probes Medical Societies

When Merck and Schering-Plough released data from a clinical trial of cholesterol medication Vytorin showing that it worked no better than a much cheaper generic, the companies were widely accused in the media of deliberately delaying the release of the findings for 20 months in order to boost profits—prompting the U.S. Senate Finance Committee to investigate. The result: the SFC has widened its inquiry into pharmaceutical industry funding, including grants for medical society meetings, to