Should HHS Secretary Kennedy Create Government Health Journals?
He claims major journals are corrupt.
I thought perhaps I’d better chime in on Secretary Kennedy’s proposal for creation of government publication of government research. Quoting from Stat:
On the “Ultimate Human Podcast with Gary Brecka,” Kennedy said, “We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and those other journals because they’re all corrupt.” The journals, he said, publish studies that are funded by the pharmaceutical industry. As a substitute for them, he continued, the NIH will establish medical journals for its various institutes and centers — unless current journals change “radically.”
I’ve seen articles covering Kennedy’s announcement that make it seem as though the government wants to control what is published. The articles talk about the age and prestige of the journals. They don’t talk about the darker side.
Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, has written two books: Science on Trial: The Clash of Medical Evidence and the Law in the Breast Implant Case; and The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It.
Voices in Bioethics did an interview with Dr. Angell in 2016. She was asked,
The new policy allows drug companies to pay a writer $10,000 annually for editorial reviews. Yet, writers may receive payments from multiple companies, and a company may pay more than one writer, which gives writers multiple sources of income and thus presents a conflict of interest. Given this, is any amount acceptable? Do you think there should be a zero-tolerance policy?
Her answer,
Zero. …
One person said that what the senior faculty really likes, in addition to money, is food, friendship, and flattery, and you see how that works and how that co-opts people who think they’re objective and who want to be objective, but who are in fact so closely allied with the big drug companies that they start to feel their pain. (laughs)
Explaining the death of my brother?
Dr. Angell also talked about drug companies only publishing positive results and hiding (not publishing) negative results from new drugs. The example she gave was new blood thinning drugs to replace Warfarin. A problem with new drugs:
So this was a part of Bud’s (her husband and also a former editor of NJM) objection to the studies on these new Warfarin replacements. They have a serious side effect in that they can’t be reversed. If you’re taking these drugs and you start to hemorrhage, there’s nothing that can be done about it. Whereas if you’re taking Warfarin, hemorrhage can be reversed with vitamin K.
According to my sister-in-law, my brother Steve was given a blood thinner at the hospital. I suspect they believed he had a blood clot. He also had hemorrhoids. His hemorrhoids began bleeding, and they gave him vitamin K. The bleeding didn’t stop.
I certainly don’t have enough information on my brother’s death. I was not there. I do find it interesting to run across the problem in this interview.
Have Democrats and Republicans changed sides?
Usually, Democrats trust government over private companies. Although I’ve heard the claim that Republicans trust private companies over government, I don’t think a lot of Republicans trust anybody. If you don’t trust a company, you can refuse to buy. If you don’t trust government, you are forced to buy. Covid gave us a national example.
Democrats are questioning Secretary Kennedy’s motives. Will they trust government publications? On the other hand, Republicans (at least those who think like Kennedy) don’t trust independent journals. Will they trust government journals?
Another example of changing our thinking based on who is in power.