Authors of premier medical textbook didn’t disclose $11 million in industry payments

[Sly Saint]

"
It’s a textbook that has graced the shelves of untold thousands of medical students going back decades. Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, now in its 20th edition, is a must-read for medical students and young internists. It has been called “the most recognized book in all of medicine.”

It’s also a case study in hidden conflicts of interest. So says a group of researchers who found that Harrison’s and several other leading medical texts failed to disclose financial interests the authors had in the subject matter as well as payments they’d accepted from industry groups.

According to the study, authors for Harrison’s received more than $11 million between 2009 and 2013 from makers of drugs and medical devices — not a penny of which was disclosed to readers. One author, a physician, during that period received nearly $870,000 in funding, including for research, according to ProPublica’s Dollars For Docs database of payments to doctors from drug companies."

rest of article here:
https://www.statnews.com/2018/03/06/conflict-of-interest-medical-textbook/

 

[JemPD]

well none of that comes as a surprise to us does it. In a perverse way it's somewhat of a relief to me (in this moment) that its going on all over, rather than just in the BPS CFS world.

 

[Barry]

What a cosy little world I once used to live in, if only I'd have known it.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

This looks to me like a bit of a lemon. There may be as many as 1,000 contributors to Harrison's textbook. Over 4 years that would be an average of less than $3,000 per annum. A successful academic contributing to Harrison's would expect to have a research fund turnover of at least $500,000 per annum. The major figures might have $5M budgets. $3,000 would cover expenses for a couple a transatlantic trips to meetings that would be necessary for keeping up with the international research scene.

I cannot honestly see any of these people taking money of this sort in return for writing something different in a textbook. Writing in textbooks is just a routine part of the job of being a successful academic. Nobody does it for money.