Unethical practices - drug industry

[Sy Fisher]

jkenner at cello.gina.calstate.edu (Jason Kennerly) wrote:
>where do I mail the reply... maybe to spammer at sellout.eli.lilly.profit.com???
>
>Fact is, Zoloft is *far more* selective than prozac... while prozac has 
>been arguably demostrated marginally better at improving depression than 
>Zoloft, and may be effective at lower doses for many forms of depression, 
>this is because of the slight norepinephrine boost that Prozac provides 
>and Zoloft does not!!! Zoloft is simply a drug that does its job too well.
>
SNIP

You may be right -- it could turn out that the ADR profile for sertraline 
is no worse than that of fluoxetine, and the article's results were based 
on biased data. (Some would question your assertion that sertraline is 
therapeutically superior to fluoxetine in depression.)

But the point of Dr. Goldberg's post was to get the medical community 
thinking about the evidence pointing to Pfizer's role (as an important 
advertiser in the Journal) in pressuring the journal editor.  I'm not 
sure whether your post was responsive to that issue.
>
>Anyways, enough spam... now for some biological stuff... a receptor 
>binding list(!!!) backing up what I said..
>
I'd be delighted if and when the day comes that receptor binding lists 
can accurately predict complete ADR profiles for patients in the real 
world of clinical practice.  Then FDA can drop its required safety 
evaluations in Phase III IND clinical trials (the adverse effects ratings 
are generally done in a rather unsystematic and cursory manner as it is).

However, I don't think that day has come yet.  So, in the meantime, what 
do we do about drug company attempts to interfere with journal editors' 
basic responsibility to publish articles based solely on their merit?