Prepare to read something really ugly!
A few weeks ago, we had shared with you the report from Times of India, describing an ugly face of medicine: Health spending pushed 55 million Indians into poverty in a year
The World Bank reports show that catastrophic health expenditure affected more than 80 million families around the world. Rather obviously, the beneficiary is the healthcare industry.
Now read on; here is something really ugly and frightening:
Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, now in its 20th edition, is a must-read for medical students and young internists. It has been called “the most recognized book in all of medicine.”
According to a recent study, authors for Harrison’s received more than $11 million between 2009 and 2013 from makers of drugs and medical devices — not a penny of which was disclosed to readers. One author, a physician, during that period received nearly $870,000 in funding, including for research, according to ProPublica’s Dollars For Docs database of payments to doctors from drug companies.
Can we help wondering how facts might possibly get distorted? What would medical students all over the world be learning? Scientific facts, or their horrible distortions?
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