I heard Jennifer Miller, PhD, use four numbers to discuss growing distrust of the drug industry: 12…70…1…17.
Miller is President of Bioethics International and an Assistant Professor at NYU School of Medicine. Here is her online bio.
She was one of 3 authors of a recent paper in BMJ Open that described a Good Pharma Scorecard to initially rank new drugs and their manufacturers on the transparency of clinical trial information for those new drugs. Of the limited sample analyzed, drugmakers Gilead Sciences and Sanofi rated poorly for having a large percentage of trials that were submitted to the FDA but never made public. GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson got better grades.
As Dr. Joseph Ross, one of Miller’s co-authors, told the Washington Post:
“To me the right number is 100 percent; if you’re selling a product on the U.S. market, the public and the clinical science community has a right to be able to review the results.”
We interviewed Miller at the Stanford METRICS conference, “Improving Biomedical Research 2015.” Here is the third of three podcasts coming out of that conference (the others were with John Ioannidis and Brian Nosek):
News coverage of the Good Pharma Scorecard:
How Pharma Keeps a Trove of Drug Trials Out of Public View
The Washington Post Wonkblog
Drugmakers Kept One-Third of Trial Results Secret, Study Finds
Bloomberg News
Study Finds Big Pharma Skirts Laws, Ethical Standards in Keeping Trial Data Secret
Boston Business Journal
Gilead, Sanofi Would Tank in Bioethics International’s New Good Pharma Scorecard
MedCity News
Gilead, Sanofi Singled Out As Worst Offenders In Failing To Disclose Trial Data
FierceBiotech
Pharmaceutical Scorecard Shames Giants Over Research Cover-ups
The Australian
Disclosure: Miller’s work has received a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which also supports HealthNewsReview.org
And thanks to The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation for providing us with a grant to produce these podcasts.
Credit: podcast editor Cristeta Boarini
Please note: if you have listened to any of our podcasts and like what you’ve heard, we’d appreciate it if you’d leave a Review and a Rating on the iTunes webpage where our podcasts can be found: https://itun.es/i6S86Qw. (You need to click on the “View in iTunes” button on the left of that page, then find the Ratings and Reviews tab.)
You can now subscribe to our podcasts on that iTunes page or via this RSS feed: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:167780656/sounds.rss
All episodes of our podcasts are archived on this page.
Comments
We Welcome Comments. But please note: We will delete comments left by anyone who doesn’t leave an actual first and last name and an actual email address.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified facts, product pitches, or profanity. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. Comments should primarily discuss the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages about health and medicine. This is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science. Nor is it a forum to share your personal story about a disease or treatment -- your comment must relate to media messages about health care. If your comment doesn't adhere to these policies, we won't post it. Questions? Please see more on our comments policy.
Our Comments Policy
But before leaving a comment, please review these notes about our policy.
You are responsible for any comments you leave on this site.
This site is primarily a forum for discussion about the quality (or lack thereof) in journalism or other media messages (advertising, marketing, public relations, medical journals, etc.) It is not intended to be a forum for definitive discussions about medicine or science.
We will delete comments that include personal attacks, unfounded allegations, unverified claims, product pitches, profanity or any from anyone who does not list a full name and a functioning email address. We will also end any thread of repetitive comments. We don”t give medical advice so we won”t respond to questions asking for it.
We don”t have sufficient staffing to contact each commenter who left such a message. If you have a question about why your comment was edited or removed, you can email us at feedback@healthnewsreview.org.
There has been a recent burst of attention to troubles with many comments left on science and science news/communication websites. Read “Online science comments: trolls, trash and treasure.”
The authors of the Retraction Watch comments policy urge commenters:
We”re also concerned about anonymous comments. We ask that all commenters leave their full name and provide an actual email address in case we feel we need to contact them. We may delete any comment left by someone who does not leave their name and a legitimate email address.
And, as noted, product pitches of any sort – pushing treatments, tests, products, procedures, physicians, medical centers, books, websites – are likely to be deleted. We don”t accept advertising on this site and are not going to give it away free.
The ability to leave comments expires after a certain period of time. So you may find that you’re unable to leave a comment on an article that is more than a few months old.