{"id":65575,"date":"2016-05-17T11:58:42","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T15:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=65575"},"modified":"2016-05-17T12:21:02","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T16:21:02","slug":"a-mighty-hard-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2016\/05\/17\/a-mighty-hard-row\/","title":{"rendered":"a mighty hard row…"},"content":{"rendered":"
“…it has become standard practice for pharmaceutical companies to pay medical communication companies to write articles [based on industry-designed studies], for academic physicians to be paid to essentially sign off on the articles, and then for communication companies to place the articles in prestigious medical journals, a process known as “ghost management.” Ghost management has resulted in the selective and imbalanced reporting of clinical trial data in medical journals, which in turn has supported the marketing of expensive new drugs with questionable risk\/benefit profiles.”<\/font><\/i><\/sup><\/div>\n

Under the Influence: The Interplay among Industry, Publishing, and Drug Regulation.<\/a>
by Cosgrove, Vannoy, Mintzes, and Shaughnessy<\/font><\/i><\/sup><\/p>\n

Looking at the twelve year old Citalopram in Adolescence Study<\/a>, the recent deconstruction<\/a>, and the problems they had getting it published<\/a> reminded me of another more contemporary article that I had wanted to return to. It was about the RCTs used to gain FDA Approval for Vortioxetine. I mentioned it earlier [see a couple of points\u2026<\/a>], but at the time it was only available as an abstract:<\/div>\n

As you can see from the opening quote, this article is about a lot more than just the specific papers or even the FDA Approval, it’s about the perversion of the scientific process in the industry funded RCTs, what the authors call ghost management<\/font><\/i> [AKA total commercial control of the trial process from design and registration through the drafting of the paper for publication<\/font>]. Being reminded of this paper, I recalled that when I first came across it I contacted the authors to get a copy and was told that they too had had a very hard time getting it published. It’s in a lower impact journal and it’s not available from the publisher on-line [an expensive proposition unless it’s part of grant or you’re involved with a well-heeled corporation]. So I recontacted them to find out if they had written about their publishing problems, and they hadn’t. But they mentionedf that they were disappointed with the paper’s reception, as was I. It’s a really strong and well documented article. Thinking back about our experience with the Paxil Study 329 RIAT article<\/a>, the recent Citalopram deconstruction article<\/a>, this Vortioxetine paper<\/a>, the papers about the Tamiflu re-evaluation<\/a>, and countless others, it’s apparent that there’s a common theme. So I want to revisit this Vortioxetine article later [I’ve found a way to get to it on-line], but first, I’d like to frame the common theme that unites these papers.<\/p>\n

I’ve always had kind of a problem with “ear worms.” I get some song in my mind that repeats in the background. If I think about it, usually I can figure out how it got there. I was out and about all day, and there it was – an old Woodie Guthrie<\/font> song called Pastures of Plenty<\/i><\/a>:<\/div>\n
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