Good News/Not Me; The Other Guy


The good news is that a solvent-free, less toxic chemo drug can add seven months to the lives of women with metastatic breast cancer, compared to another drug that's more toxic and is solvent-based. A recent study shows that Abraxane is better than Taxotere. According to the press release, The study was supported by Abraxis BioScience, which manufactures Abraxane. [The lead researcher] is a member of the advisory boards for Abraxis and sanofi-aventis U.S., which manufactures Taxotere. He has received grant support from Abraxis and sanofi-aventis.

Which is a neat solution to the problem of researcher bias/payola. Get money from both pharmaceutical companies, so then no one can accuse you of selling influence. All things are equal here...except the study was supported by Abraxis, whose product came out ahead in the research. Caesar's wife and all that.

An independent radiology company helped assess the results.

A recent study of oncologists showed that the doctors said they themselves weren't influenced by gifts from pharmaceutical companies, but they thought that others might be.