Pharma giant threatens Danish scientist

Pharma giant threatens Danish scientist

sciencenordic.com

A large German pharmaceutical company is bringing out the heavy artillery against a Danish professor, reports Danish newspaper Berlingske.

The company, Fresenius Kabi, is threatening to lodge a compensation claim worth millions after Professor Anders Perner published a study arguing that a common treatment for severe sepsis with the drug hydroxyethyl starch (HES) can induce kidney failure and haemorrhages, which in the worst case can kill the patient

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
sciencenordic.com

One that appeals on a couple of levels:

1/ Evil big pharma repressing the truth, but also
2/ Evidence that science and big Pharma are not actually a single conspiracy

the allegations are:

Fresenius Kabi claims that Perner’s study contains incorrect and misleading information and demands that the professor retracts the article, corrects a number of details and in a revised manuscript announces that the original article contained incorrect information.

while of course the scientist and his backers deny them:

According to the newspaper, Danish scientists are dismayed by the company’s methods, which the Danish National Hospital’s medical director Jannik Hilsted calls an attempt to suppress academic freedom.

Hilsted denies the accusations, referring to the company’s initiative as ‘bullying methods’.

The 2nd link above is to an article on the study published in the same paper a month or so ago.

I guess the interpretation of the data wil lbe a fundamental point of argument between the 2 sides & the debate will probably only be reported in industry rags like this one so will mostly go under the radar.

and of course if there is any sort of "out of court" settlement then we may never hear of it again

sciencenordic.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Dam Pharma people....story reminds me of that big tobacco company....just goes to show all scientists are not deceiving.

This is a bit for me to digest so I will just have to get back to it. It is late and I am having a hard time with some of the stuff in the link. Thanks for the post

I guess the interpretation of the data wil lbe a fundamental point of argument between the 2 sides & the debate will probably only be reported in industry rags like this one so will mostly go under the radar.

Too true, and that is what crossed my mind while reading the article. A game of wordplay perhaps, challenging the scientists findings with unanswerable questions and introducing an unfair amount of doubt into the situation.

“This is a significantly increased risk, and the country’s intensive care units have stopped using this drug to treat sepsis.”

That carries a bit of weight.

The results were clear: the two fluids’ ability to stabilise the circulation was identical.

As regards side effects, however, significantly more patients in the starch group developed kidney failure and required dialysis. These patients also had a greater number of haemorrhages which were so severe that the patients required blood transfusion.

So the saline matched the drug in performance, not just without the starch, but without the drug ingredients too...interesting.
I do believe saline is cheaper and more available than starch, so maybe cost(profit) is a factor.
I am guessing they are trying to cover their butts from liability more than anything.

“Globally, severe sepsis is the most frequent cause of death.

This I did not know.

These big pharma companies can't have those pesky scientists expose how their drugs are harmful. May as well make an example out of this guy so no one will try the same thing in the future.

Crazy scientists and their anti-poison propaganda.

Why is it surprising that, pharmaceutical companies would act any different than Monsanto or any other major corporation would? There's a certain amount of human casualty that has to occur before it can get a red flag and get recalled or looked into.

Lets wait and see how this pans out.
Im sure both sides have their arguements

Yet when it's the opposite and pharma friendly, there is a similar news blackout.

The agencies AP, Reuters reported Thorsen from Aarhus, Denmark busted for CDC grant fraud.

One of the most quoted defences of MMR/Thimerosal not inducing autism is unreliable.

Yet in politically retracted Lancet study, coauthor Walker-Smith won his UK appeal and Wakefield is still persecuted.

After dust settled, BMJ quietly printed a conflict of interest statement on 'debunking articles'...

A doctor is not goign to make such statements without having tested his theory.

Betcha his theory has merit.

A lot of research scientists know of the problems with these medicines but are afraid to challenge the Pharma companies because of fear of lawsuits. The guy writing the article should not have mentioned a specific drug, only a class of drugs. Pharma company lawyers bully people that in any way challenge their creations and have a lot of evidence to throw at an individual that challenges them, some which is kept secret just for this reason. A majority of the drugs on the market work as they say but in many cases the side effects are bad. All research has exclusions and circumstances surrounding it. The Governments around the world should put their scientists researching this and find the truth. If the Danish scientist's research is impertinent than he should lose his crudentials. If the company is guilty of having a bad drug, they should be dismantled and their controlling execs imprisoned for trying to cover things up by intimidation. Sure it's possible to have a problem with a medication, that's acceptable, but to use lawsuits to hide the digression cannot be tolerated.

This is Just my opinion. If I was in charge of this world the people intimidating a person telling the truth would be put to death in a case like this if was found to be true. Good thing I am not running this world yet.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Not saying the Big Drug company is right or the scientist is. Sepsis is fatal in a very short time period, I would try anything to stop it in it's tracks before it kills you, even if that remedy has it's own list of problems. Sepsis is a problem that ends in death, myself I'd prefer something with more options available.

Big Pharma are here to poison us FULL STOP.

reply to post by drbatstein


that's just nonsense - and of course it is competely significant you didn't try to post any evidence to support your stupid claim.

the truth is that big pharma are out ot make money, and don't particularly care about eth ethics of how they do it.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


I doubt anyone who posts to this thread knows which side is right, although some will pretend to know.

It's also an extremely large leap to say this is evidence that so called Big Pharma is out to get us

All the evidence goes the other way in fact. Each generation lives longer and is healthier in old age which actually proves there is no conspiracy.

This story will pose a dilemma however for those who think both the Pharmaceutical companies and MD's are out to get them.

Either side could be telling the truth. The courts should figure that out.

I'd hate to be on either side to be honest. Say a company develops a drug that will save tens of thousands of lives, but it is also known that a handful of people will have an adverse reaction; do you let the tens of thousands die because of that?

Peanuts are deadly to a small part of the population, so should we outlaw Peanuts? Strawberries? Aspirin?

This is like the Gluten stuff now in a way. A tiny part of the population has issues tolerating Gluten, but the vast majority do not. The snake oil crowd is out in large numbers preaching that nobody should eat anything with Gluten even though it's likely meaningless to them. Those susceptible to psychosomatic illness will develop imagined symptoms and spread the paranoia even further. Who get's hurt? Innocent Farmers selling perfectly safe products. Who gets rich? Those preying on the paranoid and uninformed selling Gluten Free stuff for highly inflated prices to people who don't even need their products.

There are bad people in charge of Pharmaceutical companies I'm sure, bad MD's, bad people selling useless products with false health claims and bad consumers who spread falsehoods out of irrationality. No company though is out to kill it's customers and potential investors. That is just absurd. Each case stands alone and the industry wide conspiracy is a myth in my opinion. Were it true we would live less years each generation and be less healthy in old age.

The insane prices are compliments of our government, taxes and regulations. That is a conspiracy that IS real in this topic genre.

There are large number of people, nearly everyone on this site, that believe that there is "research" that proves everything one way or the other. They believe that there is some giant benevolent organization that researches each and everything consumed by an individual, as well a things like EMF's and radiation etc. They will often say, "there is no research that says EMF's are harmful," which is meant to validate the use of EMF's because the entire universe has not shown there is a problem.

What they fail to see is the obvious truth. Only large companies can spend the money to research their product, and for the most part they don't have to do a legit study because who will argue with them? There is no school that will risk pissing off the big companies or government by studying anything other then approved grant money gathering topics. There is no government that will do anything but simply log the research done by the company.

And if, by some crazy off chance, someone or some groupd decides to take it upon them selves to research as in this case, which may prevent another vioxx or thalidimide scandal, this avalanche will happen.

So when people say, "there is no research that says xxx" the statement should be dismissed as totally born of ignorance of the reality we live in.

But... i thought corperations were people. Surely there altruistic tendencies would'nt allow the to purposely hurt people for the sake of profit.

This is ridiculous. Science has no place for this crap. It is actions like this, and people and companies like this, that impede progress in the scientific realm. Think of how far we would be if nothing were ever suppressed for financial reasons. It is a conflict of interest much of the time anyway for a profit-motivated business to get involved in scientific research in any capacity.

I looked up the research and it's looking like there is a higher death rate for people treated with the hydroxyethyl starch.

I found the published study www.nejm.org...

Most interesting was at the bottom:

Dr. Perner reports receiving grant support from Fresenius Kabi. .

So much for scientists doing what big pharma pays them to do.