A former French health minister has come out with some shocking information regarding the integrity of scientific publications. He has heard editors of science journals admit that pressure from pharmaceutical giants is so big as to get papers pushed into publications and bypass the usual review process.
Philippe Douste-Blazy is a cardiologist, former French health minister, former Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, and was a candidate for the Director of the World Health Organization in 2017. A recent interview in French divulged the scientific fraud to push negative studies about hydroxychloroquine.
In this interview he specifies that a closed-door Chatham House meeting was recently held. No one can record or take pictures. Among the experts in the scientific community were two editors from scientific journals, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. He mentions that when something is written in the Lancet, that's a qualification in itself for a study to have merited.
This is important, as a leaked conversation had Lancet editor Richard Horton speak in dismay at the pressure big pharma exerts over scientific journals:
If this continues, we are not going to be able to publish any more clinical research data because pharmaceutical companies are so financially powerful; they are able to pressure us to accept papers that are apparently methodologically perfect, but their conclusion is what pharmaceutical companies want.
Douste-Blazy says this is very bad, and I would certainly agree. The interviewers makes the point that since this is happening, who can people even trust with respect to alleged science being published. And that's why Douste-Blazy wanted to talk about this. Both of the editors mentioned above where in agreement about what was happening. The word "criminal" was even used.
Granted, this is at his word, but his credentials lend him a certain credibility. I believe what he says.
This was specifically in reference to the recent scandal of the Lancet having to retract a sham study of seemingly fabricated data on the negative effects of hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Douste-Blazy himself knows of the beneficial use of HCQ in treating COVID-19, and started a petition to get it approved for use by doctors. It has been signed by almost 500,000 French doctors and citizens urging the French government to allow doctors to prescribe HCQ as early as possible for COVID-19.
There is a political blindness and rejection when it comes to HCQ. Those more on the political right support the use of HCQ, while those on the left are against it. It's quite shocking that a drug that's been used for 60 years or so, has been regraded as relatively safe to use for long term treatment. Then all of a sudden when it can save lives to treat people with short term use, it all of sudden becomes dangerous. All of the people who consider themselves "scientific" and who oppose it's use should be ashamed of themselves.
The financial strings of big pharma run deep into many of the pockets of academics, media and sciences. Dishonest rhetoric is being used to paint HCQ as a harmful drug to treat COVID-19, when the opposite has been demonstrated by numerous physicians. Most have become tools for political of financial motives. It's a travesty and destruction of the imagery and epithet of medical personnel that are supposed to help people and save lives. These scandals in science and medicine are going to hurt their credibility for those paying attention to what is actually going on.