“To a remarkable extent … medical centers have become supplicants to the drug companies, deferring to them in ways that would have been unthinkable even twenty years ago. Often, academic researchers are little more than hired hands who supply human subjects and collect data according to instructions from corporate paymasters. The sponsors keep the data, analyze it, write the papers, and decide whether and when and where to submit them for publication. In multi-center trials, researchers may not even be allowed to see all of the data, an obvious impediment to science and a perversion of standard practice.”
“[Drug] manufacturers typically prefer to work with academic medical centers. Doing so increases the chances of getting research published, and, more importantly, provides drug companies access to highly influential faculty physicians — referred to by the industry as ‘thought leaders’ or ‘key opinion leaders.’ These are the people who write textbooks and medical-journal papers, issue practice guidelines (treatment recommendations), sit on FDA and other governmental advisory panels, head professional societies, and speak at the innumerable meetings and dinners that take place every day to teach clinicians about prescription drugs.”
“Drug companies support educational programs even within our best medical schools and teaching hospitals, and are given virtually unfettered access to young doctors to ply them with gifts and meals and promote their wares. … This is marketing masquerading as education. … But doctors do learn something from all the ostensible education they’re paid to receive. Doctors and their patients come to believe that for every ailment and discontent there is a drug, even when changes in lifestyle would be more effective... And they believe that the newest, most expensive brand-name drugs are superior to older drugs or generics, even though there is seldom any evidence to that effect because sponsors don’t usually compare their drugs with older drugs at equivalent doses.”
1. Former NEJM Editor on How Big Pharma Corrupted Academic Institutions: https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/05/ex-editor-nejm-tells-how-big-pharma-has-corrupted-academic-institutions/?fbclid=IwAR1lBRjOdE-a6h_ltRiw_4-UDLCJqyfHBi6eCe6XmUTWrPFL9mLZzTQbSPg
2. The Truth About The Drug Companies; How They Deceive Us And What To Do About It ( 2005) Marcia Angell: https://archive.org/details/the-truth-about-the-drug-companies-how-they-deceive-us-and-what-to-do-about-it-marcia-angell