Why would the trial administrators give a shit how the trial came out? They’re being paid by the drug companies, and they get the same amount of money if the drug works or doesn’t work. And virtually all phase 3 clinical trials are multi-center, so if they doctor up the results to make it looks like the drug works at THEIR institution, but it doesn’t work at others: Automatic Red Flag.

Besides, the trials are virtually all double-blind, and if the blind is broken before the trial is over, it leaves a paper trail.

What you are suggesting is a pervasive corruption that permeates the regulatory agencies, the drug companies, the medical community, and the government, all working in concert to sell you a drug that is dangerous or does not work.

I hope you’ve still got that tin-foil hat.

In the future, it might be good if you restricted your comments to something you know about.

The notion that an IRB somehow “doctors up” the results of a clinical trial is so laughable I’m ashamed of you for even bringing it up.

And how do we know that? Because the people doing the experiments say so? Would I be allowed to verify a trial first hand? Plus, it is not the Review Board that would doctor the results, more probably the actual trial administrators.

History has repeatedly shown us that organizations can not be trusted to police themselves. Although I have no specific knowledge of any malfeasance here, neither would I put a blanket trust on any “Review Board” that is tied to the trial or even industry itself.

Obviously, you have no first hand (or even second hand) experience with IRBs. Or clinical trials, or the FDA, or much of anything else related to this post.

>>That is not to say or even suggest that the results are
>>routinely doctored. But I will say that because we never
>>know, it is possible.

See above. I think all that radiation is getting to you Isotopic One. The IRB has nothing whatsoever to do with the “results” of a clinical trial. None. They review protocols and monitor safety issues. And in doing that, they are even more stringent than the FDA. The notion that an IRB somehow “doctors up” the results of a clinical trial is so laughable I’m ashamed of you for even bringing it up.

I guess you guys can’t see the forest for the trees. The review panels and oversight committees are all on the same side. That is not the same as an independent oversight from a disinterested party such as the FDA. Your oversight has a lot of bias and conflict of interest involved.

That is not to say or even suggest that the results are routinely doctored. But I will say that because we never know, it is possible.

I’m really begining to agree with the isolantionists a bit, after Bush is gone and we end our envolvement in Iraq and Afganistan, we should pull back into ourselves, it would give the world what it claims to want and allow us to concentrate on making this country viable again, in health care, education, infrastructure, science and maths.

Departments like the FDA and others are struggling to keep their heads above water and thats wrong.

The joke is on anyone that actually believes in the benevolent “institutional review board”. Usually an elite set of university medical and research oriented individuals all drooling at the prospect of another “wonder drug” that could net the university millions in their ‘cut’, and by the way the ONE individual who is put on the board who isnt a member of the professional community is ‘appointed’ by the President of sponsoring organization. What a schill!!!

Call Ripley’s if he did. I’ve never known it to happen with anything I was familiar with, aside from some specialty press.

Journalists are experts at writing articles that grab the attention. Seldom anything else.

Can’t really blame the FDA for that. Read “Pure Evil” by Greg Iles for an idea of what might be going on deep in the bowels of a bomb shelter beneath an abandoned bakery, in the name of science.

The FDA monitors (among other things) drug research conducted by legitimate pharmaceutical companies. And, all things considered, they do a pretty good job. They’re not the CIA, FBI, NSA, or the local police, and their mandate is not to track down evil scientists conducting clandestine research.

Ditto.

And if we want tighter controls on American-grown E. coli vegetables, kiddie cold medicines, cures for cancer, and lead-painted toys, we are going to have to PAY for it. That means either higher taxes, or taking some of the hundreds of billions of dollars we waste every year and redirecting them to programs that actually benefit Americans. Those are the only two options.