#994: Scientific Harlots…
Following on from the disgusting antics of the Weinberg Group here’s an excerpt from a humorous but all to true view on the world of scientific spin. This was published in the British Medical Journal, Vol. 327, 20-27 December 2003.
Full article at: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1442
Snakes, ladders, and spin
HARLOT plc: an amalgamation of the world’s two oldest professions
David L Sackett, director1, Andrew D Oxman, director2, on behalf of HARLOT plc
1 Trout Research and Education Center, Markdale, ON, Canada N0C 1H0, 2 Department of Health Services Research, Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Welfare, Oslo 0031, Norway
Correspondence to: D L Sackett sackett@bmts.com
Tired of being good but poor, the authors have amalgamated the world’s two oldest professions in a new niche company, HARLOT plc, specialising in How to Achieve positive Results without actually Lying to Overcome the Truth
We’ve been good. DLS has prohibited sponsors’ stockholders, much less employees, from seats on his data safety and monitoring boards and has enforced the banning of pharmaceutical reps from the medical wards at McMaster University. ADO has exposed problems with experts and has promulgated rigorous reviews of research to inform decisions about health care. In sum, we have established impeccable reputations for protecting the validity of randomised trials and systematic reviews, and for exposing lapses in methods, validity, therapeutic claims, and professional conduct.
We’ve also been poor. DLS drives a clapped out pick-up truck, and his rowing boat leaks. ADO wears worn out blue jeans and hasn’t had a new pair of shoes for 10 years.
It has finally dawned on us that being good and being poor are causally related: being good doesn’t pay. Accordingly, we have decided that it’s time for us to find out whether being bad pays better. We’re combining the world’s oldest and second oldest professions, cashing in on our reputations, and distributing this confidential prospectus for our new company, HARLOT plc.
HARLOT services
HARLOT plc will provide a comprehensive package of services to discriminating trial sponsors who don’t want to risk the acceptance and application of their products and policies amid the uncertainties of dispassionate science. Through a series of blind, wholly owned subsidiaries, we can guarantee positive results for the manufacturers of dodgy drugs and devices who are seeking to increase their market shares, for health professional guilds who want to increase the demand for their unnecessary diagnostic and therapeutic services, and for local and national health departments who are seeking to implement irrational and self serving health policies. The tables summarise our services: table 1 shows the ways we can cook the data in an individual randomised controlled trial; table 2 displays an array of aftercare services for keeping the truth from interfering with sales and implementation; and table 3 lists the services that we offer to our non-elite (that is, shallow pockets) customers. Limited space permits the individual description of only a few of our services. References for all of them can be obtained by subpoena from our legal department.
SNIP For the full paper go to: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/327/7429/1442
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