Dr. Robert Fletcher

 Dr. Robert Fletcher

"At the same time that medical journals are given incentives to please the drug companies, they are also given strong disincentives to go against drug company interests."

Dr. Abramson described that the medical journal articles in the 2000s were beginning to be affected by bias because of the pharmaceutical companies. Journal articles were being published that were positive reviews for newer medication when writers were choosing to hide real information to prevent negative results from being published or described in the case of Vioxx and Celebrex. In the case of Celebrex, the adverse effects were omitted from being published in the twelve month study and only the first six months of the study were published. 

Dr. Fletcher spoke truth being an editor of a journal of Internal Medicine. Dr. Fletcher published an article that stated that 44% of the drug ads in medical journals are written in a way that would lead doctors with no other source of information to prescribe improperly. Dr. Fletcher also described that 92% of the drug ads were in violation of FDA rules (Overdo$ed America page 113).

This describes the incongruency between how individuals that spoke truth to prevent medical harm to others were actually punished instead of rewarded. This was in 1992 that Dr. Fletcher described concern over drug ads in medical journals that are known to be significant in the prescribing of medication. This is similar to Dr. Gueriguian and Dr. Applegate who spoke out against the bias that the pharmaceutical companies were attempting to have on research of new medications.

Dr. Fletcher wrote in The Lancet in 2003 about how he was punished by the pharmaceutical industry who withdrew ads from the journal where he was the main editor. This describes that pharmaceutical companies have attempted to encroach and prevent real unbiased research in favor of positively reviewing newer medication that can have significant side effects and symptoms. This is interesting noting how since the 2000s, the pharmaceutical companies have attempted to prevent unbiased research in favor of newer medication approved in haste.