Of all the black eyes the Merck pharmaceutical company has inflicted upon itself, the biggest shiner yet may come from new allegations in the current Journal of the American Medical Association.
Two JAMA articles say Merck misrepresented the death risks in one study and routinely stuck the names of top researchers onto ghostwritten scientific reports.
Once again, at the center of Merck's mess is Vioxx, the painkiller Merck withdrew from the market after finally acknowledging a cardiovascular risk for those taking the top-selling drug.
Documents related to the thousands of Vioxx lawsuits were reviewed by experts, who published their results in JAMA. They paint a damning picture of a company willing to buy the science required to support its marketing plans. In fact, one JAMA article says Merck's marketing staff planned some of the scientific studies and contracted to have them written, leaving a blank for the names of the researchers who would be recruited to serve as "authors."
If Merck is guilty, is there any reason to believe it is the only company that has done this? The JAMA editors raise that very good question.
JAMA, Consumers Union and others are calling for full disclosure of the financial links between pharmaceutical companies and research study authors, journal editors and reviewers as well as more disclosure about the role anyone listed on a scientific paper played in the research.
Those reforms would build a higher wall between science and pretense. Yet, if a company or individual is willing to tell the kind of lies the JAMA articles say were told, would the proposed safeguards be enough to prevent even bigger lies about vested interests and role-playing for pay?
A number of the implicated researchers have denied any misdeeds. So has Merck, which says the JAMA article authors have their own conflicts of interest because they previously worked for some of the litigants suing Merck over Vioxx.
Congress needs to order an investigation to sort fact from fiction in this matter. The shameful thing is that the Food and Drug Administration, understaffed and underfunded, is the least likely to do an effective job of answering the questions.
Some independent agent, such as the Government Accountability Office or the Institutes of Medicine, should be assigned to review the Vioxx documents and look into the growing list of questions about the legitimacy and integrity of the research on which patients bet their health.
Many experts stress that most of what we know about any medication is based on research sponsored by the very company with a fortune riding on the results. Is it possible to change that? It is certainly time to consider how it might be done.
The perception that pharmaceutical marketing has overtaken science seems like more than just a notion.
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Insider's view: Hear hear! Big Pharma spends twice as much on sales and marketing as it does on R&D. No wonder they are in the mess they're in.
How about this for a strategic idea: reverse that ratio and they might just come up with some novel compounds that will help get them out of this mess of their own making.
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