Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17165

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Miguelote VR, Camargo KR Jr.
Knowledge industry: a powerful mechanism.
Rev Saude Publica 2010 Feb; 44:(1):190-6
http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-89102010000100021&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en

Abstract:

The paper deals with the pharmaceutical industry’s links to the knowledge industry, through powerful marketing strategies. With the aim of scientifically legitimizing its products, the pharmaceutical industry interferes with the production of medical knowledge. In the form of a mechanism for directing economic interests, it funds drug research, biases its results and stimulates the production and publication of scientific papers. This is a mechanism that threatens important ethical issues: it transforms the process of scientific legitimization into a marketing strategy, compromises the credibility of the process of constructing medical knowledge and encourages distortions of the criteria for evaluating the quality of scientific papers.