NEW DRUG TRIALS: ARE RESULTS A FOREGONE CONCLUSION?
Comments of Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD on: Grants from NIH and Industry for US Clinical Trials to Exceed $4 Billion in 2000 According to CenterWatch Research Boston, MA , November 2000 (From the November issue of the CenterWatch newsletter) CENTERWATCH: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Annick de Bruin, Research Manager CenterWatch (617) 856-5956 http://www.centerwatch.com/pressreleases.html Grants from NIH and Industry for US Clinical Trials to Exceed $4 Billion in 2000 According to CenterWatch Research Boston, MA , November 2000: Total spending on clinical trials in 2000, from all sources, is expected to reach as much as $4.5 billion in the United States. More than 80% of this spending will come from pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies. These findings are based on primary and secondary research conducted by CenterWatch, a Boston-based publisher focusing on the clinical trials industry.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Psychopharmacologypsychiatric drugsrepresent the biggest sector of the pharmaceutical
industry, bigger than antibiotics, bigger than all drugs for all forms of arthritis. It
also differs from all branches of pharmacology in that the persons/ patients,
treated/drugged, have no actual disease; they are normal, although
emotionally/behaviorally/psychologically troubled. With industry funding 80% of the
research, is it a surprise to find them calling such things diseases due to chemical
imbalances for no purpose other than to make patients of normal persons and to get those
patients to believe in the logic and science that would have them take chemical
balancerspills, to balance their chemical imbalance.
In that they invent diseases out of thin air and convince legislators and judges that
persons having them should be treated against their own will, can you possibly bring
yourself to believe that trials of their drugs, which they author, fund, hire for, and
conduct will possibly conclude other than that the drugtheir product--is safe and
efficacious.
Theyespecially those in psychopharmaceutical drug trials- are spending an astronomical 4.5
billion dollars on clinical trials, not so much to discover a wonder drug, to work wonders,
to cure diseases, or heal diseased, broken bodiesbut to create a scientific/ medical/
therapeutic literature all of which says, not once, but repeatedly, that their drug is
safe and efficacious whether it is or not, whether it is crippling and deadly or not.
Such is the corporate, dollars-only, mentality and ethic that prevails today, that
guides/rules the government and dependent, bought-and-paid-for medical academia and the
whole of the medical profession here in the US. It would be of particular interest to know
what percent of the 4.5 billion dollars are being spend for psychiatric drug trials. This
should be an easy figure to get.]
"The results of our analysis show a very robust market that is growing 18% annually," said Annick de Bruin, research manager. "And pharmaceutical companies make up the lion's share of total spending. Only about 20 cents of every clinical grant dollar is spent by the government for clinical trials involving human subject participation," she said. Reported in the November issue of the CenterWatch newsletter, clinical grant market estimates capture the total spending on clinical trials involving study volunteers and medical therapies. The estimates include historical data on spending levels by industry and by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The analysis also includes revised 1999 estimates of the market distribution for clinical trial services by academic institutions and independent for-profit investigative sites. "The most recent analysis is a continuation of work that we have been doing since 1995 with one exception," said Ken Getz, CenterWatch president and publisher. "To our knowledge, this report presents the first published estimates of NIH spending for comparable clinical trials to those sponsored by industry. This was a very difficult part of the analysis. And we hope to refine it based on additional feedback from the NIH and academic institutions." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~