The Serpent's Wisdom

I don't know if any of you out there have the same automatic internal reaction as i do when i see articles or essays that talk about a scientist's funding or other potential biases. My immediate reaction is to want to reject any such concern as "ad hominem" and therefore irrelevant to discourse about whatever matter is at hand. So, this may really only be targeted at an audience of one (me).

A while back lady_babalon linked to this news story about a researcher who examined the funding sources of scholars and clinicians who developed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM).

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Here's a study describing some of the ways researchers finagle the bounds and methods of their research in order to tweak results so that they are favorable to the pharmaceutical companies funding their research.

Objective To investigate whether funding of drug studies by the pharmaceutical industry is associated with outcomes that are favourable to the funder and whether the methods of trials funded by pharmaceutical companies differ from the methods in trials with other sources of support.

... Conclusion Systematic bias favours products which are made by the company funding the research. Explanations include the selection of an inappropriate comparator to the product being investigated and publication bias.

Add to this a study which "reveals" (as if none of us could have possibly known) that FDA panelists who have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry are more likely to vote to approve drugs:

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As an interesting aside, see an article here which tries to slant this to show that there is no conflict-of-interest in FDA drug-approval votes: "The study finds that the removal of all of those advisory committee members [with dubious funding] would not have reversed the results of any of the votes at meetings between 2001 and 2004, although their removal could have made some decisions less favorable."

One is inclined to wonder how we might correct for the warping effect of big pharma as an 800-lb gorilla in the medical field. Something that big and influential is bound to force people consider their careers and personal well-being when making decisions like this, even if they do not receive direct funding from the pharma companies.

When contemplating things like this a piece of my brain shouts, "That's an ad hominem argument!" I've been trained to overlook, as much as possible, any personal information about a person making an argument and look at the merits of the argument itself. And according to the survey linked above, the merits of the research papers themselves do reveal, upon close examination, the obvious favorable tweakings in methodology.

But the public doesn't get to examine the methodology of any given study. Usually results are just presented in the media as holy proclamations. "Scientists say blah-de-blah-blah in a new report to be published today in the Journal of Very Respectable We Assure You Science." The average American may be vaguely aware of the steps in the scientific method, but unless she has been a scholar of science she is generally not hip to the subtle ways in which methodology can be tweaked to bring results in line with expectations.

And let's take this a step further and see who it is who is alleging bias in pharmaceutical research -- mostly it is people with the organization Public Citizen, who themselves can be justifiably accused of potential bias! It never ends.

Allegations of bias in science become even more explosive when you consider various research offered to support fundamentalist agenda items. The tone of sciencific speech can be adopted even by people as thoroughly discredited as anti-gay "researcher" Paul Cameron, and the media will play along, especially if it is operated by people favorable to the agenda at hand.

The idea of personal bias in researchers is like scientific kryptonite. Science is understood as a form of inquiry that allows people to pursue knowledge removed from economic, institutional, and ideological pressures. Supposedly bias is detected during the peer review process. Therefore, people are supposedly taken out of the equation, and results stand on their own as proclamations which have the blessing of an entire community, therefore carrying more weight than the simple assertions of a few individuals.

But if the reviewing peers are biased too, what then? What if "common sense" itself is biased?

We want to pretend that bias does not exist in science, or if it does, that it is rare. If bias can be sneaked into the proclamations of science, the "scientific mystique" might be undermined. Therefore it's easier to just dismiss any kind of talk about a researcher's funding or background as trivial and over-personal. Doing so belies the reality that science falls into ruts called paradigms, which in large part reflect the biases of culture and "common sense," which in turn is shaped by oppression.

In classrooms nationwide, girls are pulling ahead of boys academically. Recent federal testing data show that what starts out as a modest gap in elementary-level reading scores turns into a yawning divide by high school. In 12th grade, 44% of girls rate as proficient readers on federal tests, compared with 28% of boys. And while boys still score slightly higher on federal math and science exams, their advantage is slipping.

Most startling is that little is being done to correct the imbalances. All of the major players schools, education colleges and researchers largely ignore the gender gap. Instead of pursuing sound solutions, many educators merely advocate prescribing more attention-focusing Ritalin for the boys, who receive the drug at four to eight times the rate of girls, according to different estimates. "Too often the first reaction to an attention problem is 'Let's medicate,' " says Rockville, Md., child psychologist Neil Hoffman. "Some schools are quick to recommend solutions before they've fully evaluated the problem." from Girls get extra school help while boys get Ritalin

I suppose no one has sought to investigate whether or not rising Ritalin use for boys may be a direct cause of boys' declining grades?

Sometimes it just hurts having penetrating insight.

alobar, georgedorn, and anyone else on my list who despises SSRI's should get a half-chuckle out of this.

From the Onion:
Pfizer Launches 'Zoloft For Everything' Ad Campaign

This is one of those times when the Onion is more truthful than the average news media. "Quizzes" like this have been appearing at pharmacies all over:



There are some people who seem to get genuine benefits from these drugs, who fare much better when taking them. But the pharmaceutical companies have decided that they are cash cows and have been pushing what are truly powerful psychoactive drugs as "harmless" drugs appropriate for large segments of the population.