On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 1:54 PM, SlimVirgin <slimvir...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 14:19, George Herbert <george.herb...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, SlimVirgin <slimvir...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> We would not allow the people who make Coca Cola to be our sole >>> sources on whether it's safe, or on whether we all ought to be >>> drinking it. But when it comes to drugs and scientists, we lose sight >>> of the fact that there is often a very strong conflict of interest. >>> >>> Sarah >> >> There's a societal problem there; we don't independently pay for many >> scientific grade studies on medications. There are some - but the >> bulk of them are done by the drug companies in the course of getting >> drugs studied and approved, and then as ongoing due dilligence as >> they're used. >> > > There's an interesting article here: Angell, Marcia. > "Industry-Sponsored Clinical Research. A Broken System", The Journal > of the American Medical Association, September 3, 2008 > http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/300/9/1069 > > She writes: "Over the past 2 decades, the pharmaceutical industry has > gained unprecedented control over the evaluation of its own products. > Drug companies now finance most clinical research on prescription > drugs, and there is mounting evidence that they often skew the > research they sponsor to make their drugs look better and safer." > > I think we need to take very seriously that we're allowing a lot of > our science articles to be sourced entirely to studies paid for by big > corporations selling products.
The proper way to fight that problem - which is legitimately a problem - is societally, in getting alternately funded drug studies going with independent researchers. It's not to open Wikipedia to poorly sourced, ancedotal evidence that is not medically supportable. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
