Why pharmaceutical companies need to be prevented from researching clinical aspects of their own drugs

The past month has seen much pontification in medical journals explaining why pharmaceutical companies should no longer be allowed to control and conduct research informing the public and doctors about the efficacy and clinical use of their own drugs. The Sheffield scenario (this blog) is another reason

Here are a few excellent publicly available ones.

Review of Pfizer internal documents relating to manipulation of science and the perception of science
Annals of Internal Medicine, August 2006

Evidence of an industry out of control
Journal of the Canadian Medical Association, August 2006

From optimism to disillusion
Professor Sir Ian Chalmers, Journal of The Royal Society of Medicine, July 2006

Can We Tame the Monster? "Drug companies should not be allowed to evaluate their own products."
Fiona Godley, Editor of the British Medical Journal, July 2006

Medical journals usually bend at the first sign of a legal raised eyebrow from their corporate masters. Are we seeing the start of a new sanity, or yet more fine words?

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