corner
Healthy Skepticism
Join us to help reduce harm from misleading health information.
Increase font size   Decrease font size   Print-friendly view   Print
Register Log in

Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19447

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

Kassirer JP
Keeping big pharma in check?
BMJ 2011 Mar 10; 342:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1103.extract


Abstract:

This comprehensive, authoritative, and insightful history of the US Food and Drug Administration enables a reader to understand how the FDA garnered power over one of the most powerful industries in the world; the myriad forces that have influenced FDA decisions; and the social and political factors that shaped the FDA and those that continually buffet it. The story of the FDA is a tale of gradual accretion of authority, influenced from time to time by legislation, and punctuated not only by occasional national drug disasters but also by some almost calamitous near misses.

The book is a lesson on the numerous constituencies upon which a government agency relies to preserve and maintain its reputation. It is an impressive and moving story about government employees who have served the public well by approving drugs with proved efficacy and safety, basing decisions on solid science, often under criticism from industry, legislators, academics, professional societies, disease based organisations, and patients.

But it is also a story of how science and a reputation based on rigorous scientific conduct is not necessarily sufficient to sustain an …

 

  Healthy Skepticism on RSS   Healthy Skepticism on Facebook   Healthy Skepticism on Twitter

Please
Click to Register

(read more)

then
Click to Log in
for free access to more features of this website.

Forgot your username or password?

You are invited to
apply for membership
of Healthy Skepticism,
if you support our aims.

Pay a subscription

Support our work with a donation

Buy Healthy Skepticism T Shirts


If there is something you don't like, please tell us. If you like our work, please tell others.

Email a Friend








...to influence multinational corporations effectively, the efforts of governments will have to be complemented by others, notably the many voluntary organisations that have shown they can effectively represent society’s public-health interests…
A small group known as Healthy Skepticism; formerly the Medical Lobby for Appropriate Marketing) has consistently and insistently drawn the attention of producers to promotional malpractice, calling for (and often securing) correction. These organisations [Healthy Skepticism, Médecins Sans Frontières and Health Action International] are small, but they are capable; they bear malice towards no one, and they are inscrutably honest. If industry is indeed persuaded to face up to its social responsibilities in the coming years it may well be because of these associations and others like them.
- Dukes MN. Accountability of the pharmaceutical industry. Lancet. 2002 Nov 23; 360(9346)1682-4.