Tuesday, June 26, 2012

But of course

Oh by all means -- less regulation:

A research director for Pfizer was positively buoyant after reading that an important medical conference had just featured a study claiming that the new arthritis drug Celebrex was safer on the stomach than more established drugs.

The truth was that Celebrex was no better at protecting the stomach from serious complications than other drugs. It appeared that way only because Pfizer and its partner, Pharmacia, presented the results from the first six months of a yearlong study rather than the whole thing.

What's a little fraud on thousands, no millions, of people's health if we can shake a little more profit out of the deal?

It's what Mitt Romney would want!

4 comments:

Montag said...

It's unfortunate that this is considered "science" by the general public. It erodes confidence in scientists, in part because the public is inclined not to think of this as a manipulation and distortion of what science is, but, rather, that all scientists are greedy (which may be part of the reason why so many people are swayed by the anti-global warming argument that it's a fiction created by "scientists who want to get rich").

Science does get abused for profit, no question about it. But, inevitably, that abuse is related to deviations from scientific method, not to scientific method itself.

JDM said...

Arrowsmith. It Can't Happen Here.

Anonymous said...

I'll take Sinclair Lewis for $200, Alex

pansypoo said...

what's a little fudging. not like it's thalidomide.