MB Comment: The NY Times has a pharmaceutical company fetish. Their health and science sections and blogs are packed with glowing coverage of drug company press releases hyping this or that supposed pharmaceutical cure. So this new NY Times article on pharma/doctor corruption seems two-faced.

They never mention pharma-forbidden information such as Dr. Starfield’s critical article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that estimated 106,000 US deaths annually from drug adverse reactions. That ranks as the number five leading killer in the US.

I have seen the NY Times link to the blog of Orac (David Gorski). Gorski is the pro-vax, pro-thimerosal, vaccine victim slanderer who wages a permanent blogging campaign against the NVIC, Age of Autism, Natural News, the Greater Good Movie, Dr. Mercola, Steve Jobs, informed consent and anything that isn’t sanctified by big pharma.

As Age of Autism has pointed out, Gorski and his employer have major financial conflicts of interest with Sanofi-Aventis, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.

This issue of drug industry corruption of medical studies, physicians and lawmakers has been simmering in news reports, medical journal articles and Harvard University presentations for years. While it is commendable that the Gray Lady should finally inform its millions of readers about medical corruption, perhaps the NY Times should look in the mirror before it runs stories about conflicts of interest relating to drug companies, doctors and biased media coverage of medical issues, including vaccines.

Maybe the next NY Times story could be about how the National Press Foundation is brainwashing journalists with whitewashed, biased information about vaccine safety.

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Payments to Doctors by Pharmaceutical Companies Raise Issues of Conflicts
NY Times  Nov 24, 2011

Drug companies pay medical professionals for a wide range of activities, from speaking engagements to consulting. While legal, the practice raises questions about potential conflicts, and whether the interests of patients may be compromised.

From 2009 to early 2011, at least 25,000 Texas physicians and researchers received a combined $57 million — and probably far more — in cash payments, research money, free meals, travel and other perks, according to data culled from 12 drug companies and provided by the nonprofit investigative news organization ProPublica.

Dozens of these medical professionals were paid more than $100,000 each during that period. And 114 were professors, physicians, psychiatrists or researchers who were already paid a salary by the state — in some cases more than a half-million dollars a year. These state employees brought in nearly $3 million combined from pharmaceutical companies from 2009 to early 2011, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of the ProPublica data.

Nationwide, pharmaceutical manufacturers routinely pay medical professionals to assess a new product or to help contribute to the drug company’s sales. The companies fly medical professionals to seminars and conferences and may also pay speaking fees. State-employed doctors and researchers are generally no exception, though they are supposed to comply with their individual institutions’ conflict-of-interest policies.

“It’s important to state out of the gate the importance of these interactions, the value they bring to physicians, to health care professionals in general and ultimately to patients,” said Karl Uhlendorf, vice president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

Read the Article