The Integrity in Science Project

A searchable database reveals the corporate interests behind science studies.

"Our Mission
Over the last thirty years, the commercialization of science in the United States and around the world has increased dramatically. The revolution in genetics, patent protections for bioengineered molecules, laws strengthening intellectual property rights, and the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act authorizing licensing and patenting of results from federally-sponsored research created new incentives for scientists, clinicians, and academic institutions to join forces with for-profit industry in an unprecedented array of entrepreneurial activities.

Although many have cheered partnerships between industry and the research community, it is also acknowledged that they entail conflicts of interest that may compromise the judgment of trusted professionals, the credibility of research institutions and scientific journals, the safety and transparency of human subjects research, the norms of free inquiry, and the legitimacy of science-based policy.

For example:

* There is strong evidence that researchers’ financial ties to chemical, pharmaceutical, or tobacco manufacturers directly influence their published positions in supporting the benefit or downplaying the harm of the manufacturers’ product.
* A growing body of evidence indicates that pharmaceutical industry gifts and inducements bias clinicians’ judgments and influence doctors’ prescribing practices.
* There are well-known cases of industry seeking to discredit or prevent the publication of research results that are critical of its products.
* Studies of life-science faculty indicate that researchers with industry funding are more likely to withhold research results in order to secure commercial advantage.
* Increasingly, the same academic institutions that are responsible for oversight of scientific integrity and human subjects protection are entering financial relationships with the industries whose product-evaluations they oversee.

In response to the commercialization of science and the growing problem of conflicts of interest, the Integrity in Science Project seeks to:

* raise awareness about the role that corporate funding and other corporate interests play in scientific research, oversight, and publication;
* investigate and publicize conflicts of interest and other potentially destructive influences of industry-sponsored science;
* advocate for full disclosure of funding sources by individuals, governmental and non-governmental organizations that conduct, regulate, or provide oversight of scientific investigation or promote specific scientific findings;
* encourage policy-makers at all levels of government to seek balance on expert advisory committees and to provide public, web-based access to conflict-of-interest information collected in the course of committee formation;
* encourage journalists to routinely ask scientists and others about their possible conflicts of interests and to provide this information to the public.


Link

Game Brain

This article from Men Style/GQ is a little way off our usual Pharma trail, but certainly made us think - and wonder how many damaged brains we will see in the future in users of certain medications. The cruelty of corporate executives involved in these cases is noteworthy and clear; we do not doubt that similar coverups and indifference occur in fields other than sports.

"Let’s say you run a multibillion-dollar football league. And let’s say the scientific community—starting with one young pathologist in Pittsburgh and growing into a chorus of neuroscientists across the country—comes to you and says concussions are making your players crazy, crazy enough to kill themselves, and here, in these slices of brain tissue, is the proof. Do you join these scientists and try to solve the problem, or do you use your power to discredit them?"



"The coverage that week had been bracing and disturbing and exciting. Dead at 50. Mike Webster! Nine-time Pro Bowler. Hall of Famer. “Iron Mike,” legendary Steelers center for fifteen seasons. His life after football had been mysterious and tragic, and on the news they were going on and on about it. What had happened to him? How does a guy go from four Super Bowl rings to…pissing in his own oven and squirting Super Glue on his rotting teeth? Mike Webster bought himself a Taser gun, used that on himself to treat his back pain, would zap himself into unconsciousness just to get some sleep. Mike Webster lost all his money, or maybe gave it away. He forgot. A lot of lawsuits. Mike Webster forgot how to eat, too. Soon Mike Webster was homeless, living in a truck, one of its windows replaced with a garbage bag and tape.
...
Omalu stared at Mike Webster’s brain. He kept thinking, How did this big athletic man end up so crazy in the head? He was thinking about football and brain trauma. The leap in logic was hardly extreme. He was thinking, Dementia pugilistica? “Punch-drunk syndrome,” they called it in boxers. The clinical picture was somewhat like Mike Webster’s: severe dementia—delusion, paranoia, explosive behavior, loss of memory—caused by repeated blows to the head. Omalu figured if chronic bashing of the head could destroy a boxer’s brain, couldn’t it also destroy a football player’s brain? Could that be what made Mike Webster crazy?"

Article continues here.

The New York Times has more here.

Bipolar Disorder Secondary to Head Injury - a MEDLINE Search by Ivan K. Goldberg, M.D. can be found here.

To view healthy and sick brains at the Harvard Whole Brain Atlas, go here.

The Sports Legacy Institute is here.

Social Utility: How Much Are Grandma and Grandpa Worth?

By Dr. Russell Blaylock, author of EXCITOTOXINS - THE TASTE THAT KILLS
A thought-provoking essay. The ideas presented here apply to any individuals who are older, disabled or different.
Link
Are the prime beneficiaries of sacrifice of today's "useless eaters" not persons, society in general or even the State - but Corporations?

Trailer from LOGAN'S RUN, a 1976 sci-fi film set in a dystopia where aging persons are culled - at 30:

More on the "old killed for benefit of young" debate in the arts is here.

Another way to profit from the elderly: Retired Texas couple held in care as "incompetent" while guardian and state clean out their assets.
News link

How the Bailout Benefits Big Pharma - and YOU Will Pay For It

At about the 1:20 mark, Mr. Kucinich mentions Pfizer's $68 Billion buyout of Wyeth - for which YOU will pay. The New York times article link is here.

Drug Companies and Doctors: Marcia Angell

For two decades, Marcia Angell was the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. Slowly and with reluctance she came to realize the corruption in Big Pharma, and has written extensively about it.

These two articles sum up many of the problems she found in the academic-industrial complex, and are essential reading for those in the health field - and those who use their services.
Jan. 2009:
Drug Companies and Doctors: A Story of Corruption
A 2004 article, here
The Truth About Drug Companies

UPDATE: Get The Truth About Drug Companies immediately - e-download for a very reasonable cost
here

Some foster kids' doctors have ties to drug companies

Texas, Minnesota, Vermont and more. Story here.
Listen to former Pharma rep Gwen Olsen talk about how drug company representatives put a positive spin on dangerous meds at her site, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher.

Update: Texas suspends drug program for kids

A state mental health plan naming the preferred psychiatric drugs for children has been quietly put on hold over fears drugmakers may have given researchers consulting contracts, speakers fees or other perks to help get their products on the list, The Dallas Morning News reports.
The Children’s Medication Algorithm Project, or CMAP, was supposed to determine which psychiatric drugs were most effective for children and in what order they should be tried at state-funded mental health centers, the paper writes. In April, state health officials gave researchers the go-ahead to roll out the guidelines, but a month later, they delayed the protocol after objections from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office.
At most, the suspension indicates that state investigators fear fraud has occurred, according to the paper. At the least, the change reflects nationwide unease with potential conflicts of interest between leading medical researchers and drugmakers that fund much of their work. Publicly, officials say it’s because the state is suing Johnson & Johnson’s Jannsen unit for allegedly using false advertising and improper influence to get its drugs on Texas’ now-mandatory adult protocol, the Texas Medication Algorithm Project.

Big Tobacco, Big Pharma: $ame tune, different word$

The history of smoking: scary documents held at UCSF.

Who pwns your food?

Fascinating information on "green" food production by corporate giants - some of which also produce chemicals, drugs and other products.
Sometimes, where there are hydrogenated fatty acids, there's smoke, too. Did you know that Kraft Foods was owned by (cough cough) Philip Morris, which they have cleverly disguised by renaming it Altria?
How Greenwashing Works

Farmers are disappearing. What will happen if all food production is corporatized?


And we are also concerned about genetically modified (GM) food - some crops have been designed to produce DRUGS...