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News & Views
‘Medical Pioneer’ Faked Drug Research and Put Countless Lives at Risk
Date: 02/07/10
Let’s say you are an influential anaesthesia professor and you receive many thousands of dollars in research grants from major pharmaceutical giants to publish your expert findings in prestigious medical journals.
Surely, you would jump at the chance to carry out important drug research and then publish the findings to inform both the public and those in the medical profession of the potential health risks or benefits attached to the drugs in question... Wouldn’t you?
Patients’ lives put at risk with dangerous, unproven drugs
Well, it turns out that one professor... described as ‘prolific’, ‘influential’ and ‘a pioneer’ in his area of expertise... didn’t.
Worse still, it turns out that the culprit got away with a feather-light prison sentence too...
Dr. Scott S Reuben, an ‘influential’ Massachusetts Professor of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine, pleaded guilty in February this year to health care fraud, after it was discovered that he had been faking research for pharmaceutical companies for 12 years!
As the former chief of the acute pain unit at Baystate Medical Centre, in the US, he received thousands of dollars for research on highly controversial pharmaceutical drugs such as Vioxx and Celebrex. He published his ‘findings’ in scientific journals such as ‘Anesthesia & Analgesia’.
But a routine audit, in 2008, at the Baystate hospital uncovered the fact that Reuben was a fraud - his ‘work’ on post-operative pain management had never actually been carried out...
Furthermore, findings from an additional 21 published studies were later found to have been ‘misrepresented’, some of them dating back to 1996. These were retracted by the journals last year...
And who were the Big Pharma names lining his pocket?
Drum roll please!!!
Pfizer (Celebrex) and Merck (Vioxx). Oh, as an aside - Reuben was also a member of Pfizer’s speakers’ bureau, so he gave talks about the drugs Pfizer manufacture to colleagues for financial reward...
Join the party
Between 2002 and 2007, Pfizer gave Reuben five research grants... The big question is, if they handed him so much money, would Pfizer have had any input into, or overseen how these funds were being used? This we will never know... but chances are...
Reuben is not the only guilty party here. It seems that faking research can be a great sideline income for those in the medical profession lacking scruples...
In 2009, a study by Dr Daniele Fanelli, at the University of Edinburgh, brought the issue of fraudulent medical research to the fore and showed that misconduct is more prevalent in clinical, medical and pharmaceutical research than most other fields.
Dr. Fanelli’s study highlighted the following:
* 5 per cent of scientists interviewed admitted outright cheating, fabricating, or falsifying results.
* Up to one third of scientists admitted questionable practices. Which really means they manipulated data to give a false impression, and modified the outcome to “improve” results?
* Another one third of scientists questioned admitted observing misconduct in others.
Findings like these give an entire new meaning to the phrase ‘gold standard’ - which the medical establishment and the mainstream media cling to as the only ‘standard’ of ‘scientific proof’. The only ‘gold’ here is that lining the fraudulent researchers’ pockets.
More so, when a doctor or scientist reaches the rank of ‘professor’, Joe Public generally assumes that their work is of the highest quality and that their research methods are sound...
Clearly not, especially in the case of Dr. Reuben... Or is it a question of, I have a good name so I can get away with it?
In the naughty corner
Earlier this year, it was revealed that the UK’s biggest drugs company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), tried to intimidate independent scientists and deliberately misrepresented medical data to deny safety concerns over their top-selling diabetes treatment, Avandia.
So there you have it. Three of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer, Merck and GSK, are linked in some way or another to some very underhand practices...
Who pays the price? Me and you.
The real concern is that phony research – like Reuben’s - may have increased the use of potentially dangerous drugs like Pfizer’s Celebrex and Merck’s Vioxx.
In fact, Vioxx – an anti-inflammatory pain-relieving drug – was banned in 2004, after research revealed strikingly higher heart attack and stroke risk in prescribed patients.
Yet, despite putting people’s lives in danger, Reuben received a short jail sentence of just 6 months and a $5,000 fine!
How bad must you have to get before you get locked away for a year or more?
Related Reading:
What Doctors Don’t Tell You About Your Prescription Can Harm You
Adverse Side Effects of Pharmaceuticals are Underplayed and Often Silenced
Sources:
‘New study: Scientific fraud in medicine’ published online, anh-europe.org
‘Glaxo's handling of Avandia concerns damned by US Senate committee’ published online 22.02.10, guardian.co.uk
‘Influential US anaesthesia professor faked drug research over 12 years’ published online, anh-europe.org
Back to topSurely, you would jump at the chance to carry out important drug research and then publish the findings to inform both the public and those in the medical profession of the potential health risks or benefits attached to the drugs in question... Wouldn’t you?
Patients’ lives put at risk with dangerous, unproven drugs
Well, it turns out that one professor... described as ‘prolific’, ‘influential’ and ‘a pioneer’ in his area of expertise... didn’t.
Worse still, it turns out that the culprit got away with a feather-light prison sentence too...
Dr. Scott S Reuben, an ‘influential’ Massachusetts Professor of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine, pleaded guilty in February this year to health care fraud, after it was discovered that he had been faking research for pharmaceutical companies for 12 years!
As the former chief of the acute pain unit at Baystate Medical Centre, in the US, he received thousands of dollars for research on highly controversial pharmaceutical drugs such as Vioxx and Celebrex. He published his ‘findings’ in scientific journals such as ‘Anesthesia & Analgesia’.
But a routine audit, in 2008, at the Baystate hospital uncovered the fact that Reuben was a fraud - his ‘work’ on post-operative pain management had never actually been carried out...
Furthermore, findings from an additional 21 published studies were later found to have been ‘misrepresented’, some of them dating back to 1996. These were retracted by the journals last year...
And who were the Big Pharma names lining his pocket?
Drum roll please!!!
Pfizer (Celebrex) and Merck (Vioxx). Oh, as an aside - Reuben was also a member of Pfizer’s speakers’ bureau, so he gave talks about the drugs Pfizer manufacture to colleagues for financial reward...
Join the party
Between 2002 and 2007, Pfizer gave Reuben five research grants... The big question is, if they handed him so much money, would Pfizer have had any input into, or overseen how these funds were being used? This we will never know... but chances are...
Reuben is not the only guilty party here. It seems that faking research can be a great sideline income for those in the medical profession lacking scruples...
In 2009, a study by Dr Daniele Fanelli, at the University of Edinburgh, brought the issue of fraudulent medical research to the fore and showed that misconduct is more prevalent in clinical, medical and pharmaceutical research than most other fields.
Dr. Fanelli’s study highlighted the following:
* 5 per cent of scientists interviewed admitted outright cheating, fabricating, or falsifying results.
* Up to one third of scientists admitted questionable practices. Which really means they manipulated data to give a false impression, and modified the outcome to “improve” results?
* Another one third of scientists questioned admitted observing misconduct in others.
Findings like these give an entire new meaning to the phrase ‘gold standard’ - which the medical establishment and the mainstream media cling to as the only ‘standard’ of ‘scientific proof’. The only ‘gold’ here is that lining the fraudulent researchers’ pockets.
More so, when a doctor or scientist reaches the rank of ‘professor’, Joe Public generally assumes that their work is of the highest quality and that their research methods are sound...
Clearly not, especially in the case of Dr. Reuben... Or is it a question of, I have a good name so I can get away with it?
In the naughty corner
Earlier this year, it was revealed that the UK’s biggest drugs company, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), tried to intimidate independent scientists and deliberately misrepresented medical data to deny safety concerns over their top-selling diabetes treatment, Avandia.
So there you have it. Three of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer, Merck and GSK, are linked in some way or another to some very underhand practices...
Who pays the price? Me and you.
The real concern is that phony research – like Reuben’s - may have increased the use of potentially dangerous drugs like Pfizer’s Celebrex and Merck’s Vioxx.
In fact, Vioxx – an anti-inflammatory pain-relieving drug – was banned in 2004, after research revealed strikingly higher heart attack and stroke risk in prescribed patients.
Yet, despite putting people’s lives in danger, Reuben received a short jail sentence of just 6 months and a $5,000 fine!
How bad must you have to get before you get locked away for a year or more?
Related Reading:
What Doctors Don’t Tell You About Your Prescription Can Harm You
Adverse Side Effects of Pharmaceuticals are Underplayed and Often Silenced
Sources:
‘New study: Scientific fraud in medicine’ published online, anh-europe.org
‘Glaxo's handling of Avandia concerns damned by US Senate committee’ published online 22.02.10, guardian.co.uk
‘Influential US anaesthesia professor faked drug research over 12 years’ published online, anh-europe.org
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