Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Paxil/Seroxat: WOW

I just completed watching the Panorama investigation that aired yesterday on BBC. I ever so highly recommend it. You can check it out here. This lifts the curtains on the usual sets of lies, and does an excellent job of exposing how allegedly independent researchers served as puppets for GlaxoSmithKline. I will write more about it soon. Nice to see some good investigative journalism.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

CL Psych:

Did you happen see this quote on the AHRP blog re: Panorama? I hadn't thoroughly read through their blog before, but this ultimately is the crux of what I believe will have to be done to root this out.
***
Fiona Godlee poses the question: "So what can we do to change the blind-eye culture of medicine?" The answer, she concludes: "In the interests of patients and professional integrity" is to show those who have sold their reputations "intolerance and exposure."
***
I could not agree more, though I would use the terms professional and public shame and ridicule, but tis obviously semantics.

CL Psych said...

I've not read through the AHRP site regarding the latest Panorama in much detail yet, though I will check it out. Goodlee is clearly on to something -- the culture of academics politely sitting by for the sake of "collegiality" and "professionalism" has so far yielded a system where very few academics dare to speak up.

As a result, we have academics plainly serving as corporate spokespeople while very few of their colleagues dare to challenge their frequently inaccurate statements and their willingness to suppress unfavorable data.

Intolerance and exposure aka naming and shaming -- these ideas may indeed yield better results than the current system of hiding heads in the sand and pretending everything is working well.

Good to see more of your comments again lately, NAB.

Anonymous said...

Note that Marty Keller seems to be almost as ubiquitous as Elvis; he has a decent sized part in this documentary as well.