preview

Pharmaceutical Industry and The Manipulation of Clinical Research

Better Essays

For as long as civilization has existed, humans have been looking for ways to advance in the field of medicine in order to cure illness and elongate the human lifespan. This has led to many positives such as ground-breaking new discoveries, inventions, and vaccines. One aspect of medicine that has grown dramatically in the past decade is the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceuticals are responsible for the manufacturing and the distributing of medicine in the form of drugs. While the drugs main purpose is to help the sick, you cannot say the same for the pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, the pharmaceuticals discovered that the more we advance in the field of medicine, the more money there is for the taking. The World Health …show more content…

When pharmaceutical companies manipulate data, it means that they change the results from the research to their favor just in order to get their new drug approved by the FDA. There are several ways pharmaceutical companies manipulate data in order to yield favorable results. The company’s drug maybe compared with another drug administered at a dose so low that the company’s drug looks more powerful. Or a drug that’s likely to be used by older people will be tested in young people, so that side effects are less likely to emerge. The standard practice of comparing a new drug with a placebo, when the relevant question is how it compares with an existing drug, is also misleading. (Espejo) Sometimes, pharmaceuticals will straight up lie in their research results, because there is no way for the FDA to check thoroughly. Many pharmaceutical companies have sponsors that have significant influence over government personnel within the FDA, and many times they use their influence to get FDA members to “look the other way” (Rodwin). The main reason that these pharmaceutical companies manipulate data is to increase their profit. Company managers have strong financial incentives, in the form of stock options and bonuses, to get drugs approved and widely marketed (Brown). This is all with disregard to the quality of the drug in question. This means that pharmaceutical companies will rush to manipulate

Get Access