Slashdot Mirror

Revealed: secret plan to push'happy' pills
http://www.theguardian.com/soc...

Big Pharma Could Win International Price Monopoly, Unlimited Profits in 'Free Trade' Deal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

US patent moves are 'profoundly bad' in leaked TPP treaty
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement under negotiation between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Leaked documents show the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) is pressuring TPP countries to expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and trade away access to medicines.
http://www.citizen.org/TPPA

The medical industry the third-leading cause of death in the United States; after heart disease and cancer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Big Pharma Shamelessly Shills Dangerous Bone Drugs You Don't Need
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency
http://www.globalresearch.ca/t...

"Somewhere in Rayong or Chon Buri on the coast of Thailand, a young woman may at this very moment be baring her arm for a shot of an experimental Aids vaccine that many of the leading scientists in the field say categorically has no hope at all of working.

She will be one of 16,000 volunteers recruited for the second large-scale Aids vaccine trial, a $119m exercise many scientists believe is a farce."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/scie...

Fraud has become so endemic in this country that it's woven its way into America’s DNA. 2). Big Pharma Fraud.
http://www.alternet.org/story/...

Drug Makers New Targets for U.S. Fraud Inquiries, Report Says
http://prescriptions.blogs.nyt...

Merck drew up a "hit list" of doctors that needed to be "neutralized" because they criticized the now banned drug Vioxx.
http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Merck invents its own journal to publish bogus research findings to promote it's own products.
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009...

Why Aren't These Fraudulent Papers Retracted?
http://truth-out.org/news/item...

Doubts about Johns Hopkins research have gone unanswered, scientist says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

A National Survey of Physician–Industry Relationships
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...

Yeah yeah, tinfoil hat "Big Pharma is evil!" conspiracies.

Yeah, yeah, call something a "conspiracy" an we're all right again!

At least they can provide paid reviewed "studies" and clinical trials regarding their treatments, which is a fuckload more than these quack assholes can do.

http://www.naturalnews.com/028194_Scott_Reuben_research_fraud.html
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/
http://classic.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55671/
http://classic.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55679/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Drugs/story?id=7577646&page=1#.TtV4Xzg6e-M
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=2066
http://www.medcitynews.com/2011/07/fda-says-cro-cetero-faked-trial-data-pharmas-may-need-to-redo-tests/
http://jeps.efpsa.org/blog/2011/11/01/lessons-from-a-fake-study/
http://www.rense.com/general66/newhigh.htm

In short - "clinical trials" and "peer-reviewed" in pharmacology are mainly just buzzwords to make shit look legit.

Here's a picture of the two rats involved

Well, considering that your "source" is also just a blog, and your fallacy is the typical Wikipedia fallacy that a link would somehow make it more true, I say we are still head-to-head from a third perspective. And frankly I trust my sources more than yours.

But here is something for you to digest:
http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/
http://laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/mercks-ghostwriters-haunted-papers-and-fake-elsevier-journals/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/09/bad-science-medical-journals-companies

I'd say the exact point of this, is to make doctors prescribe drugs, with the only reason being profit. Which was exactly my point. :)

My point is that when you have a system that is so open to corruption, with so few checks and balances, and so much baggage inherited from institutions that began in the dark ages, it's no surprise that you end up with science that's much less than perfect.

Its also no surprise when you end up with science that is horribly incomplete.

We need to place more emphasis on using the internet as a repository for non-published works. (Like DeepDyve http://www.deepdyve.com/corp/about ).

With this comes the boogie man of the kook "scientist". (Which unfortunately includes any scientist who is not yet published).

We need to start using something like the Web of Trust found in key signing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust to document the credentials of scientists without regard to the content of any specific work.

(Scientists A, B, C, and Institution 1, 2, and 5 sign Professor X's credentials certifying that they know him to possess the training and education to conduct studies in his field, without any indication of approval or disapproval of his current work, but with due regard for any past work of which they may be aware).

With a web of trust you would be able to distinguish the kooks (those with closed webs of trust) from the real scientists (those with open and expanding webs).

This would allow us at least some clue as to credentials and knowledge of the scientist under discussion rather than the mere presence of an article in a journal of questionable value. http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

I've noticed that these bioethics departments are cropping up at universities all over the place but is this the type of material they're working on?

This sort of thing is just one of the many topics that bioethicists get involved in. If you want to get some idea of what bioethicists do you could take a look at this short introduction to bioethics, or take a look through some recent issues of the American Journal of Bioethics.

What these bioethics departments should be doing is trying to convince people that stem cell research is one of our best chances at curing many diseases. That's a much more important goal...

Bioethics is an accademic discipline and, as such, their primary task is find the truth, not to engage in advocacy.

I've noticed that these bioethics departments are cropping up at universities all over the place but is this the type of material they're working on?

This sort of thing is just one of the many topics that bioethicists get involved in. If you want to get some idea of what bioethicists do you could take a look at this short introduction to bioethics, or take a look through some recent issues of the American Journal of Bioethics.

What these bioethics departments should be doing is trying to convince people that stem cell research is one of our best chances at curing many diseases. That's a much more important goal...

Bioethics is an accademic discipline and, as such, their primary task is find the truth, not to engage in advocacy.