‘Scientific’ drug trial caught out as yet another marketing exercise
Up to 80 per cent of ‘scientific’ papers that research the effectiveness and safety of a drug are nothing but marketing pieces, designed to drum up sales – and a new example has come to light this week.
A study on the epilepsy drug Neurontin (gabapentin) was a ‘seeding trial’ – it was marketing dressed up as science. The practice is unethical, say reviewers, because it misleads doctors into thinking it is a properly conducted trial and with outcomes they can trust.
The ‘scientists’ behind the study were marketing personnel, and the drug’s marketing department viewed the entire exercise as a way of drumming up sales.
(Source: Archives of Internal Medicine, 2011; 171: 1100-7).