Is Industry-Funded Science Killing You?

A few excerpts from Reason magazine:
"...........conflicts of interest undermine public trust in and support for scientific research, endanger research subjects and patients, and boost medical costs by encouraging physicians and patients to use new treatments that are no better than cheaper alternatives. Yet public trust in biomedical research remains high, and that trust seems to be justified. Subjects in clinical trials hardly ever suffer serious harm, and instances in which dangerous side effects turn up after drugs are approved are relatively rare. Rather than making medicine unnecessarily expensive, pharmaceutical innovation ultimately reduces health care costs, because new drugs usually have advantages that pay off in lower medical bills.

The critics’ concerns are not entirely groundless. Driven by self-interest, drug companies and researchers do occasionally hide data or run drug trials that produce data of scant clinical value. But private initiatives by medical journals, universities, and companies are already addressing these challenges, making government action unnecessary. "
Granted that sometimes over intrusive government actions in the fields of medical and scientific inventions can be detrimental to the overall creative process, however, that does not bar the necessity of having a neutral overseer, in most cases where people can trust their "elected" government, who should be protecting public trust without being tied to commercial interests that other non-governmental entities have more potential to be succumbed to in the face of "conflicts of interests".

Link to article:
Is Industry-Funded Science Killing You?

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