“Previous research has shown that academic physicians conflicted by funding from the pharmaceutical industry have corrupted evidence based medicine and helped enlarge the market for drugs. Physicians made pharmaceutical-friendly statements, engaged in disease mongering, and signed biased review articles ghost-authored by corporate employees.
This paper tested the hypothesis that bias affects review articles regarding rimonabant, an anti-obesity drug that blocks the central cannabinoid receptor.
CONCLUSIONS:
The findings are characteristic of bias that arises from financial conflicts of interest, and suggestive of ghostwriting by a common author. Resolutions for this scenario are proposed.
In summary, financial conflicts permeate the system and are by no means limited to corporations referenced in this article, such as Merck, Parke-Davis, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, and Wyeth-Ayerst. On balance, pharmaceutical corporations do good work and aid in humanitarian efforts. For example Sanofi-Aventis provides artemisinin at cost to malaria-endemic countries. Nevertheless, ghost authorship and the corrupting effects of covert financial support must cease. Only three of eight rimonabant review articles disclosed corporate sponsorship; two authors specifically denied conflicts. Lack of disclosure prevents readers from judging the credibility of an author. Medical journals should require stronger author disclosure procedures, and universities should discipline academics who sign ghostwritten articles. This behavior should be regarded as unethical misconduct. More broadly, researchers with conflicts of interest should not be allowed to sit on guideline committees and regulatory boards. Corporate funding of CME programs and review articles should be abolished.
While this paper was under review, Merck halted taranabant RCTs, and Sanofi-Aventis removed rimonabant from the European market. The FDA rejected rimonabant after data submitted by Sanofi-Aventis revealed adverse effects in RIO trials that went unreported in RIO publications [86], including one death in a rimonabant-treated subject (ruled a suicide by the FDA, [86]) that did not appear in the pertinent publication [7]. Although the risk-benefit ratio of cannabinoid receptor blockade may preclude its use for chronic conditions such as obesity and drug or alcohol dependence, cannabinoid receptor blockade could serve in the treatment of acute endocannabinoid dysregulation, such as hepatic cirrhosis, hemorrhagic or endotoxic shock, cardiac reperfusion injury, and doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2659447/
