4 ms·

On conflict of interest during Gardasil's testing in India: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14401 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14401 "JayaJan

On conflict of interest during Gardasil's testing in India: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14401 http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14401 "JayaJan Pharmaceutical Research in India was one of the companies with which Merck had a contract to test Gardasil. Like most of the industry, Merck increasingly outsources its clinical trials to Contract Research Organizations (CROs) in areas of the world where trial subjects are plentiful, operating costs are low, and regulations lax. .. Critics point out that CROs can come with built-in problems. Conflicts of interest can arise when CROs are paid royalties only after a drug is approved rather than being paid a set fee that is independent of how safe or effective the drug turns out to be. Problems can also arise because CROs know that favorable findings mean that research into a test drug will continue, and they may also believe that results that please the hiring corporation can lead to future contracts. "[C]ompanies know that the farther the compound moves through the research cycle, the more money they can raise," Nature reported." Also on India and a Gardasil Supreme Court case questioning safety: http://sanevax.org/india-supreme-court-hpv-vaccine-controversy-continues/ http://sanevax.org/india-supreme-court-hpv-vaccine-controver... And from Mercola questioning its effectiveness: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/12/29/why-india-has-stopped-giving-hpv-vaccines.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/12/... In general from Marcia Angell: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15/drug-companies-doctorsa-story-of-corruption/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15/drug-co... "The problems I've discussed are not limited to psychiatry, although they reach their most florid form there. Similar conflicts of interest and biases exist in virtually every field of medicine, particularly those that rely heavily on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine."

djsumdog 9y ago
I feel like a lot of people on HN don't want to promote "vaccine denialism," but the reality is that you cannot put all vaccines, nor can you put all drugs, in the same category. Many vaccines have done a lot of good. Many of the people who question some of the more recent vaccines are not against the standard MMR. I don't think it's wrong to question newer pharmaceutical products, including drugs, devices and vaccines. Remember Vioxx? Clinical trials have a lot of safeguards, but we've seen how business interests can side step these. A lot of money goes into studying new compounds. If during the animal trials, if a single monkey dies, your entire compound is often scraped and has to go back quite a but. At the human side of testing, potential issues can mean a lot of money being scrapped. It's a bigger problem with how we develop drugs, and it's also a bigger problem with how we see science, especially the mixture of science and funding. James Corbet has a great video about the "Weaponization of Science" which is worth considering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yecefLsE44U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yecefLsE44U
froindt 9y ago
As a general note, the validity of claims from Mercola should be taken with a large grain of salt. He publicly holds a number of frankly dangerous opinions which he bestows upon anyone who reads his website, and has made many millions of dollars from such claims and tactics. Among other things: Questioning whether HIV is the cause of AIDS, claiming manifestations of AIDS (including opportunistic infections and death) may be the result of "psychological stress" brought on by the belief that HIV is harmful. Claims that microwaving food alters its chemistry, despite consensus that microwaving food does not adversely affect nutrient content compared to conventionally prepared food. *Claiming cancer risks arise from mobile phone radiation, which is pseudoscientific. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola
gumby 9y ago
Be careful with that corpwatch quote: > Like most of the industry, Merck increasingly outsources its clinical trials to Contract Research Organizations (CROs) in areas of the world where ... regulations [are] lax... Everybody outsources to CROs, that’s what CROs are for. Yes, people do trials all over the place but by and large those investigative sites tend to be pretty good with decent controls. The study population (per FDA regulations ) has to be reasonably representative of your treatment population btw, so you couldn’t get approval for a drug in the US bas d solely on studies done in Sweden, Nigeria or India. Some countries are pretty lax (won’t name the ones I’m thinking of because I don’t want this to come off as a slur) but the agency is going to look askance at any data you get from there and try to use for approval. But they can be OK for some early investigation (within your safety protocol) as long as you aren’t foolish enough to go ahead with a program based solely on it.

djsumdog 9y ago

I feel like a lot of people on HN don't want to promote "vaccine denialism," but the reality is that you cannot put all vaccines, nor can you put all drugs, in the same category. Many vaccines have done a lot of good. Many of the people who question some of the more recent vaccines are not against the standard MMR. I don't think it's wrong to question newer pharmaceutical products, including drugs, devices and vaccines. Remember Vioxx? Clinical trials have a lot of safeguards, but we've seen how business interests can side step these. A lot of money goes into studying new compounds. If during the animal trials, if a single monkey dies, your entire compound is often scraped and has to go back quite a but. At the human side of testing, potential issues can mean a lot of money being scrapped. It's a bigger problem with how we develop drugs, and it's also a bigger problem with how we see science, especially the mixture of science and funding. James Corbet has a great video about the "Weaponization of Science" which is worth considering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yecefLsE44U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yecefLsE44U

froindt 9y ago

As a general note, the validity of claims from Mercola should be taken with a large grain of salt. He publicly holds a number of frankly dangerous opinions which he bestows upon anyone who reads his website, and has made many millions of dollars from such claims and tactics. Among other things: Questioning whether HIV is the cause of AIDS, claiming manifestations of AIDS (including opportunistic infections and death) may be the result of "psychological stress" brought on by the belief that HIV is harmful. Claims that microwaving food alters its chemistry, despite consensus that microwaving food does not adversely affect nutrient content compared to conventionally prepared food. *Claiming cancer risks arise from mobile phone radiation, which is pseudoscientific. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola

gumby 9y ago

Be careful with that corpwatch quote: > Like most of the industry, Merck increasingly outsources its clinical trials to Contract Research Organizations (CROs) in areas of the world where ... regulations [are] lax... Everybody outsources to CROs, that’s what CROs are for. Yes, people do trials all over the place but by and large those investigative sites tend to be pretty good with decent controls. The study population (per FDA regulations ) has to be reasonably representative of your treatment population btw, so you couldn’t get approval for a drug in the US bas d solely on studies done in Sweden, Nigeria or India. Some countries are pretty lax (won’t name the ones I’m thinking of because I don’t want this to come off as a slur) but the agency is going to look askance at any data you get from there and try to use for approval. But they can be OK for some early investigation (within your safety protocol) as long as you aren’t foolish enough to go ahead with a program based solely on it.