Posted by Adam on April 1, 2001, at 15:51:23
Diane J., and other interested parties,
I know I'm not Dr. Bob. Forgive the conceit, but I thought I might add my $0.02 here:
There are problems with research funded by pharmiceutical companies. I have worked on projects that got funding from big pharma for years, and now I'm working for "little pharma" if you will, and I don't always like what I see. I like it less and less as time goes on, but fortunately, all is not bad, and the research community, both in and out of industry, is catching on. There are lots of possible conflicts, though, between the ethics of independant research and the economics of for-profit-funded research, and the results, as we have seen most starkly in some recent gene therapy trials, can be lethal for the people who depend on us to be unbiased in our assessment of what we are researching. It would be wise, though, to realise that research conducted by people has never been and will never be completely unbiased, and money isn't the only thing at stake when it comes to what is reported, and what isn't. Some people aren't in it for the money. Worse, they're in it for the "glory", and that is something that can plague academia as readily as the private sector.
There a checks and balances, the most potent form of which is robust peer review. In the instances where pharmaceutical companies have gotten too much control over the reporting of results, or their academic counterparts had too much of a financial stake in the research, the outcome can be pretty disturbing. Again, I think the real effect on the research community as a whole, has been limited. Not absent, but limited. You might be encouraged by the fact that most researchers, both in for-profit and public (the distinction, in reality, at least in the biomedical realm,is not terribly stark, and hasn't been for a long time, I'm afraid) are highly ethical, highly critical, and couldn't give a damn if the suits like what they're telling them or not. They'll readily lose their job or their freedom over it, if that's what it takes. Because of these people, there are serious efforts to renormalize the process, and institutions like Harvard University (and associated teaching hospitals, among the finest in the world), are already limiting the financial stake any researcher can have in a private interest and continue to work there. The industry itself is undergoing some serious self-analysis, too, though I think more could or should be done there.
Skepticism is the key. Be a skeptic. Don't be a knee-jerk pessimist, or a complete cynic. Don't lose faith entirely with the process. It's a good process, it works the vast majority of the time, and it's got built-in safety mechansims so that, even whent the process breaks down, on occasion, the mistakes don't go unnoticed for long.
poster:Adam
thread:58311
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010327/msgs/58311.html