Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11350

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Butcher J.
The story of fenoterol
The Lancet 2007 Sep 1; 370:(9589):732
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607613610/fulltext

Abstract:

“Vintage Papers from The Lancet, which was published a couple of years ago, is a wonderful anthology of some of the most influential articles that The Lancet published between 1823 and 2005. Selecting these articles was a challenging task for the editor, Ruth Richardson. However, one paper that Richardson did not include, but perhaps might have done, describes how fenoterol, a β agonist, was responsible for the increased mortality seen in young people with asthma in New Zealand during the 1980s (Lancet 1989; 333: 917–22). One of the authors of that study, Neil Pearce, has written a compelling book …”

Notes:

Free full text

Review of:
Pearce N. Adverse Reactions: The Fenoterol Story
Auckland University Press, 2007.

“…Pearce tells how New Zealand’s official body, the Asthma Task Force, dragged its heels over the epidemic. He also describes the tactics that Boehringer Ingelheim, the makers of the drug, used to convince doctors that Pearce and his team’s study was methodologically unsound and that the drug was safe. Even The Lancet comes out badly-according to Pearce, the editors at the time almost caved in to heavy industry pressure, in the form of commissioned peer-review comments, and threatened to withdraw the paper, after acceptance, but before publication…”