On 2 Oct 1995 10:40:07 -0400,
JFFIII <jffiii at aol.com > wrote:
>There have been some interesting comments concerning the outcomes of
>pharmaceutical company sponsored research. I would certainly expect the
>outcome of clinical trials for potential new drugs to show some efficacy
>since the drug would never have gotten to that point had it not shown
>efficacy and safety in animal models as well as computer models. I have
>never seen a product introduced on the market that did poorly in clinical
>trials and I have seen many that did not reach the marketplace because of
>poor performance in clinical trials. The physcians that perform the
>trials are not about to compromise their integrity (with a few unfortunate
>exceptions) since their careers depend on the honesty of their findings.
>The company I work for would never ask a scientist or physcian with
>questionable credentials to carry out a clinical trial. Our reputation is
>at stake, too. Good health to all. John Freeman
>
John:
It just isn't that simple. Determining the true safety and efficacy
of drugs may take many years, and in the meantime we have to use
surrogate measures. These measures often have to be based on theories
of drug action and disease which are not well supported by scientific
evidence.
Because the market for many of these drugs runs into billions of
dollars, and because of the obvious desire to "do something" about
disease, the pressure to interpret findings in the best possible light
and overlook problems becomes almost overwhelming - human beings have
an almost infinite capacity for rationalizing away differences between
reality and their preconceived notions. Such biases in drug research
and testing have already been extensively investigated and documented.
It's not that people deliberately set out to be unscientific
and unscrupulous, it's just an inevitable consequence of human nature
and the large sums of money involved. (My grandmother, a good
Christian lady, once told me that "money is the root of all evil".
I don't think that's completely accurate, but there's a lot of
truth to it.)
AJR
