Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1327
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Publication type: news
Knight B.
Eureka Foundation questions HRT research funding links
Australian Broadcasting Commission Radio National transcript 2003 Jul 1
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s892566.htm
Full text:
MARK COLVIN: One of Australia’s leading researchers on Hormone Replacement Therapy is the subject of a complaint to the Medical Practitioner’s Board of Victoria. But it’s not about the quality of her research; it’s about who pays for it.
Associate Professor Susan Davis is the Director of Research at the Melbourne based Jean Hailes Foundation, which is funded by governments, donations, and private companies.
Some of those companies are the manufacturers of HRT drugs and the complaint suggests that those connections are not being made clear to women who are taking Doctors Davis’s advice.
Ben Knight reports.
BEN KNIGHT: There’s no question that Professor Susan Davis is a supporter for Hormone Replacement Therapy for menopausal women. And she maintained that suport during the recent scares over links between HRT and stroke, heart disease, breast cancer and dementia.
Professor Davis was widely quoted on radio, television and in newspapers urging calm, and telling women not to abandon their therapy, but Tony Cutcliffe, from the Eureka Foundation, says there was something missing from those reports.
TONY CUTCLIFFE: The information which has not been provided at present is simply the amount of money that these researchers are receiving from the pharmaceutical companies, and across the industry it amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s a basic and fundamental source of income for research organisations, and if the results of research recommend therapy based on the drugs that these companies provide, then people are entitled to know about the funding which sits behind it.
BEN KNIGHT: The Eureka Foundation is self styled policy forum based in Victoria.
Its most recent work has been on behalf of farmers pursing the State Government for negligence in its handling of this year’s bushfires.
But today, it’s lodged a complaint with the Medical Practitioners’ Board of Victoria, alleging that as the research director with the Jean Hailes Foundation, Professor Davis has repeatedly failed to tell the public about the funding the Foundation receives from drug companies.
TONY CUTCLIFFE: I’m not suggesting for a moment that any of the results are skewed or comments are skewed towards pharmaceutical companies, but the fact that so many women in Australia are relying on that public advice, they’re entitled to be aware of the potential conflict of interest and make up their own minds about it.
Tony Cutcliffe is concerned that the advice being given through the media by Professor Davis ignores alternative treatments in favour of those provided by drug companies. That, he says, is a conflict of interest and he’s also taken a swipe at the Board itself for failing to enforce its own guidelines.
Professor Davis is currently overseas, but the Foundation’s Chief Executive, Janet Michelmore, says there is no conflict of interest.
JANET MICHELMORE: Being paid to do a clinical trial does not mean that you are then going to make favourable reports about a pharmaceutical industry’s product. That is a total misunderstanding of the process of research.
BEN KNIGHT: The Foundation says all disclosures are made when research is submitted for publication.
But Tony Cutcliffe says that’s not public enough.
TONY CUTCLIFFE: The fact is that Jean Haile’s Foundation, with its various radio and television audiences, reaches millions of people, yet the information, the disclosures that they are talking about reach only a small group of people on a confidential basis involved in reviewing their professional research.
Janet Michelmore disagreees.
JANET MICHELMORE: The reality is before any interview takes place by any member of the Jean Haile’s Foundation the media is fully briefed on all funding sources that the Foundation receives, and that is one of our very strict protocols.
BEN KNIGHT: And she has the support of the Australian Medical Asociation. Dr Rosanna Capalingua is the Chair of the AMA’s ethics committee.
ROSANNA CAPALINGUA: In this particular case it appears that just as with anyone, media approach people for commentary in their field of expertise and that’s all it is when they’re speaking in the media. It’s not an endorsement or a particular push to promote a product – or a pharmaceutical company’s product.
MARK COLVIN: Dr Rosanna Capalingua, Chairwoman of the AMA’s ethics committee, ending Ben Knight’s report.
