The Wall Street Journal reports that the editor of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, Charles Nemeroff, resigned after he wrote a favorable review of a new device for treating depression that didn't disclose his financial ties to the device's maker.
WSJ reports: "The journal, which carried the article, has published a correction citing Dr. Nemeroff's ties to the device maker and those of the article's other eight authors. In addition to Dr. Nemeroff, seven of the authors were academics who serve as consultants to the maker of the device, and one was an employee of the company, Cyberonics Inc., of Houston. The authors' relationships to Cyberonics were reported in The Wall Street Journal last month. Last month, the journal published a review in which it said the Cyberonics treatment, in which a small device is implanted in the chest to deliver mild electrical pulses to the vagus nerve in the neck, is 'a promising and well-tolerated intervention that is effective in a subset of patients with treatment-resistant depression.' "
As I teach students, I use the term "rampant" to describe the entanglement of conflicts of interest in the dissemination of health and medical news. Since many journalists live off what they get in medical journals, this is further evidence of how rampant the spoiling of the food chain is.
Posted by schwitz at August 29, 2006 06:48 AM | TrackBack