Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine published a follow-up reiterating its concerns about Merck's deletions to their deceptive Vioxx study in 2000. Apparently, Merck isn't alone...
In another case of a mega-drug company paying for research and "handling" the results, Procter and Gamble may have removed as much as 40 percent of the data from a recent study of the osteoporosis drug Actonel, according to Dr. Aubrey Blunsohn (a British researcher and bone expert), distorting the final results.
Not only did Procter and Gamble submit results under the researcher's name -- although he hadn't written or reviewed the report -- the company wouldn't allow him to look at the final version until months after it was submitted to the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Even worse, Dr. Blunsohn was suspended by Sheffield University for discussing the problem in the media, although the university says it encouraged him to pursue the matter through proper channels.
Dr. Blunsohn's beef with Procter and Gamble isn't surprising, as mega-drug companies often steal the credibility of university scientists to give their drug's test results credibility, a factor that may have been responsible for about a third of studies published over a 13-year period whose results were overstated or contradicted.
Yahoo News February 22, 2006