{"id":29400,"date":"2012-10-25T18:02:03","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T22:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=29400"},"modified":"2012-10-25T18:02:30","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T22:02:30","slug":"past-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/25\/past-time\/","title":{"rendered":"past time…"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
Spinal Tap: Medtronic And Manipulated Studies<\/font><\/u><\/a><\/strong>
Pharmalot<\/font><\/strong>
By Ed Silverman
October 25th, 2012<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

There is nothing like a stack of internal documents to tell a story. And so, the US Senate Finance Committee has released a wad showing Medtronic employees were secretly involved in drafting and editing favorable journal articles about its spinal fusion product while the device maker paid millions to influential doctors whose names were on the studies.<\/p>\n

Over a 15-year period, Medtronic paid $210 million to 13 doctors and two corporations linked to doctors, including more than $34 million to University of Wisconsin orthopedic surgeon Thomas Zdeblick<\/font><\/u><\/a>, who co-authored a series of papers about the product, according to the documents, which were first reported by The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel<\/font><\/u><\/a> and Medpage Today<\/font><\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Medtronic (MDT) execs inserted language into studies that promoted InFuse as a better technique than an alternative by emphasizing the pain associated with the alternative, according to the Senate investigation. And there is an e-mail exchange showing a Medtronic employee recommended against publishing a complete list of adverse events that were possibly associated with InFuse in a 2005 Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery article.<\/p>\n

“These publications are prestigious and influential, and their standing rests on rigorous science and objectivity,” says US Senator Chuck Grassley in a <\/font>statement<\/font><\/u><\/a>. “It’s in the interest of these journals to take action, and the public will benefit from more transparency and accountability on their part.” <\/font>Grassley spearheaded investigations into conflicts of interest among physicians and academics with ties to drug and device makers.<\/p>\n

The investigation extends long-running scrutiny of the controversial device maker and Infuse, which was approved by the FDA in 2002 and contains a genetically engineered version of a naturally occurring protein. Since then, Infuse has been implanted in more than 500,000 patients by more than 2,300 surgeons and racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales…<\/strong><\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I am usually not so interested in the misadventures of pharmaceutical and device makers outside of psychiatry, but this report catches my eye for two reasons. The first is personal. I’m a back patient extraordinaire and my second surgery in the recent years has my personal back full of the Medtronic stuff. Yuck! But the second reason is general. Senator Grassley says, “These publications are prestigious and influential, and their standing rests on rigorous science and objectivity<\/font><\/strong>” <\/font><\/strong>..<\/font>. “It’s in the interest of these journals to take action…<\/font><\/strong>”<\/font><\/strong>. I hear that as my favorite Senator calling on the Journals to retract these [ghost-written] and industry influenced articles. I haven’t heard him say that so directly before. Maybe he did and I missed it. But whichever the case, I say Hear, Hear! It’s time to start retracting these industry manipulated articles from the literature rather than just decrying them. Past time…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spinal Tap: Medtronic And Manipulated Studies Pharmalot By Ed Silverman October 25th, 2012 There is nothing like a stack of internal documents to tell a story. And so, the US Senate Finance Committee has released a wad showing Medtronic employees were secretly involved in drafting and editing favorable journal articles about its spinal fusion product […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29400"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29406,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29400\/revisions\/29406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}