Counterpoint: An argument for industry-backed research

Management consultant Dr. David A. Shaywitz has joined with Dr. Dennis A. Ausiello, the physician-in-chief of Massachusetts General Hospital and a director at Pfizer, to deliver a rebuttal to a small group of research scientists who have sworn off any industry-financed drug research work. Rather than breaking ties to the drug industry, the two say, researchers should instead be encouraging them. Pharma money doesn't corrupt research, they insist. Instead, drug companies are required to perform drug studies with rigorous and consistent standards. And when drug research has fallen short recently, it's usually because of a question that hadn't been asked, "a critique that applies at least as well to the pharma-bashing studies now so popular in certain medical journals." And rather than be lauded for making important new advances in medicine, academic researchers are instead reviled for their ties to industry.

What's your opinion?

- check out their op-ed piece in the Boston Globe

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