A shocking new study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) suggests that drug companies are effectively "buying" positive research results to get their new drugs approved faster and cheaper. The article argues this corruption is so deep that the entire body of "evidence" from Big Pharma must now be questioned.
The study, led by researchers from the University of California-San Francisco, looked at 195 drug trials. They discovered that in more than half of the trials (58%), the main scientist in charge had financial connections to the company making the drug. These "cozy relationships" included things like direct payments, owning stock in the company, paid travel, and fees for "advisory" work. The study concluded that these financial ties are directly linked to positive trial results, which suggests the evidence base is heavily biased.
An editorial in the BMJ, titled "The Ties That Bind," agreed with this, stating that when companies fund studies, the results almost always "tend to favour the sponsor’s product."
This isn't new information to some medical insiders. The article highlights a powerful quote from Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and former Editor in Chief of the New England Medical Journal, who said:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
Mike Adams, the founder of NaturalNews, echoed this, saying the so-called "scientific evidence" used to approve drugs is often just "pharmaceutical voodoo and quackery disguised to look like legitimate science."
To fix this, experts are pushing for more transparency. They suggest that medical journals should refuse to publish research from scientists who aren't willing to make their data public.
The article also notes that President Trump has promised to fight Big Pharma, saying, “Pharma has a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power... We’re the largest drug buyer in the world, and we’re going to start bidding. We’re going to start saving billions of dollars on drugs.”