Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: a review

This is a web version of a review of Peter Gotzsche’s book. It appeared in the April 2014 Healthwatch Newsletter. Read the whole newsletter. It has lots of good stuff. Their newsletters are here. Healthwatch has been exposing quackery since 1989. Their very first newsletter is still relevant. Most new drugs and vaccines are developed by the pharmaceutical industry. The industry has produced huge benefits for mankind. But since the Thatcherite era it has come to be dominated by marketing people who appear to lack any conscience. That’s what gave rise to the Alltrials movement. It was founded in January 2013 with the aim of ensuring that all past and present clinical trials are registered before they start and that and their results are published The industry has been dragged, kicking and screaming, towards a new era of transparency, with two of the worst offenders, GSK and Roche, now promising to release all data. Let’s hope this is the beginning of real open science. This version is not quite identical with the published version in which several changes were enforced by Healthwatch’s legal adviser. They weren’t very big changes, but here is the original. Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime By Peter Gøtzsche, reviewed by David Colquhoun Published by Radcliffe Publishing Ltd on 1 August 2013. RRP £24.99 (320 pages, paperback) ISBN-10: 1846198844 ISBN-13: 978-1846198847 As someone who has spent a lifetime teaching pharma...
Source: DC's goodscience - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Academia badscience Big Pharma blogosphere Martin Keller Peter Gotzsche Pharmaceutical Industry Richard Eastell Source Type: blogs