Rx Needed for Medical Journals

Why did the esteemed Journal of the American Medical Association publish a paper showing that blockbuster anti-arthritis drug Celebrex is superior to a $7 bottle of ibuprofen, while the FDA maintains it isn't? Because the scientists who wrote the paper--their expenses paid by Celebrex manufacturer Pharmacia--selectively omitted half their study data to make the boss's drug look good.

The Celebrex case isn't an aberration, according to Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe. "People are injured and killed as a result of incomplete data being published and studies being designed in the wrong ways," he says. Corporate researchers attempt to prove marketing claims, not insure public health, critics say, so results are buffed or buried even if it means impeding doctors' understanding of illness and health.

The problems, however, go beyond eager-to-please scientists and eager-to-earn corporations. Medical journals are themselves reliant on drug-industry largesse. As a result, they are ill equipped to exclude unsavory, publicity-seeking corporate research from their public platform.

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