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Ministry Cancels Drug Conversation
http://web.bcnewsgroup.com/portals/monday/
By Andrew MacLeod
Sep 13 2006
Premier Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberal government may be interested in opening a conversation on health, but it apparently doesn't want health ministry staff to hear from University of Victoria health researcher Alan Cassels this week.
Cassels, the co-author with journalist Ray Moynihan of Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients, was scheduled to give a lunch hour talk about his book on Thursday, September 14. But just two days before the talk, the ministry postponed Cassels' visit. A memo to staff says, "It will most likely be rescheduled for spring 2007."
"I just feel kind of weird about the whole thing," says Cassels, who adds he feels muzzled. "Do they really think this is not going to look bad?"
He stresses that he likes the people at Pharmacare who invited him to speak and was pleased that they wanted to hear what he had to say. "Somebody above them has cancelled my presentation. That's all I know," he says. "Obviously people in the upper echelons of the ministry are uncomfortable with what I have to say."
Cassels says he has given similar talks for ministry staff in the past, before the publication of his book. "I didn't think I was that much of a threat. I'm just a little guy, a peon. Why would they be threatened by me?"
A spokesperson for the ministry, Marisa Adair, says deputy minister Gordon Macatee decided to postpone Cassels talk after he learned about it. "This was all in the interest of presenting a balanced viewpoint." Cassels has strong opinions, she says, and Macatee thought it would be better to wait until somebody from the "other side" could talk, either in the same session or a following one.
Told of Adair's response, Cassels says, "I think my viewpoint is evidence-based. If they have a problem with the evidence-based viewpoint, what's the opposite? Is it the marketing-based viewpoint?"
He points out that his book has 42 pages of references and that drug industry representatives have so far not engaged in any public discussion of the book or the evidence presented in it. "I'd like to be attacked for being wrong on the science, or on the evidence, but not for putting that evidence forward."
Asked if there's a policy on who gives the health ministry talks, Adair says, "I don't know. There's a ministry team that takes part in organizing these sessions. I don't believe there's a set policy on it."
An internet search turns up a range of recent speakers. At some point in 2006, for instance, they've had a presentation from Mark Tremblay, an Ontario doctor who lectured on "Childhood Obesity in Canada," according to his 59-page resume. Among the research funding listed on that same resume is thousands of dollars in grants from a group called Refreshments Canada. Formerly known as the Canadian Soft Drink Association, the organization represents the makers of some 35 beverages, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, other soft drinks, juices and bottled water.
It's unclear whether the ministry had anyone in representing the salad industry to balance his views.
© Copyright 2006 Monday Magazine
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SEE ALSO:
MEDICAL JOURNAL'S SPIN DOCTORS PROMOTE CONTROVERSIAL STUDIES
Writing on her blog "Honest Medicine," Julia Schopick points out
that the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) used
video news releases (VNRs) to promote two studies that later proved
controversial, because the authors had neglected to disclose their
financial ties to pharmaceutical companies. One study concluded that
pregnant women risked relapsing into depression if they stopped
taking antidepressants. The January 2006 VNR on the study featured
lead author Dr. Lee Cohen, who is a "longtime consultant to three
antidepressant makers, a paid speaker for seven of them and has his
research work funded by four drug makers," reported the Wall Street
Journal. The other study found a link between severe migraines in
women and cardiovascular disease. The July 2006 VNR on that study
featured lead author Dr. Tobias Kurth, who "has received research
funding from the makers of Bayer aspirin, Tylenol and Advil, pain
relievers sometimes used to treat migraines," reported the
Associated Press. "If JAMA continues to produce and disseminate VNRs
... its staff must check the financial ties of their authors prior
to publication," concludes Schopick.
SOURCE: Honest Medicine blog, July 30, 2006
http://honestmedicine.typepad.com/medical_watch/2006/07/how_jama_public.html
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5177
STANFORD BANS DRUG COMPANY FREEBIES
Under a tough new code of ethics all staff and students at Stanford
University's medical school, hospitals and clinics will not be able
to accept any gifts from drug company representatives. The new
policy comes into effect on October 1. "It's about time that this
happened," said Alan Cassels, coauthor with Ray Moynihan of "Selling
Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are
Turning Us All Into Patients." Harvard Medical School professor
Jerry Avorn told the Los Angeles Times that "even if the object is
of trivial monetary value, it creates the notion of a friendship.
They wouldn't be investing in those things if there weren't a
payoff." Scott Lassman, a spokesperson for the drug industry's peak
lobbying body, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America, complained that restrictions on sales representatives'
access to doctors "would be a serious mistake."
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-docs13sep13,0,6778894.story?coll=la-home-local
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5172