Even Ben Agrees

The stink from the Merck drug trial in Australia continues to grow, to the point that even Ben Goldacre has caught a whiff of it. For those who don't recognize the name, Ben Goldacre writes an opinion column in Great Britain on "Bad Medicine" and has been a stalwart soldier in the campaign to discredit homeopathy. In addition to trying to discredit researchers who discovered problems with Vioxx, they also paid for a fake medical journal published by the scientific publisher Elsevier. Further probing has discovered that Elsevier publishes six different fake medical journals, containing articles that are nothing more than drug industry advertisements. Ben harumphs and talks about the need for independence from the drug industry. Though his intentions are good, does anyone think any result will come of it? The drug industry is the dominant partner in the medico-pharmaceutical complex and calls the shots. Listening to Ben's complaints is like listening to Charlie McCarthy argue with Edgar Berman.