Paxil study under fire

摘要

The contentious issue of drug-industry influence over medical-research writing erupted on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia this week. A professor of psychiatry has alleged that several colleagues - including the chair of his department - allowed their names to be added to a manuscript while ceding control to the global pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The professor, Jay Amsterdam, also claims that the manuscript, written with an unacknowledged contractor paid by GSK, unduly promotes the company's antidepressant drug Paxil (paroxetine), the subject of the study. "The published manuscript was biased in its conclusions, made unsubstantiated efficacy claims and downplayed the adverse-event profile of Paxil," Amsterdam's lawyer wrote in an 8 July letter to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), the body responsible for investigating research misconduct in US Public Health Service agencies and its grant recipients.