Tainted Research

Why four out of five doctors recommend their sponsor’s product

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

01/22/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Sociology/tainted.htm

Robert Lee Hotz, writing for the Los Angeles Times, reported that "one-quarter of the biomedical researchers at universities had commercial ties serious enough to raise the questions of financial conflicts, the analysts found."

Well, duh.

At least, that was my initial response. Then I remembered that I was exposed to the notion of tainted research some 11 years ago, back before the corruption had become widespread in trials for drugs for human use.

Hotz wrote a good piece, and the country would be better off if people paid attention to it. But experience is that people will glide right past it, unaware of what it could mean to them at any point in the future.

Hotz’ salient points were that two thirds of all universities had conjoined commercial interests, twenty seven research universities had equity in the companies involved, and studies funded by private industry were three and a half times more likely to come up with results favorable to that particular industry. The result, according to Hotz, is a system that is compromised, and the worst of it is that it’s nearly impossible to tell just how compromised it is.

I got my introduction to the notion of tainted research back in 1991, when, oddly enough, I decided to get a dog. We knew a woman locally who raised Samoyed dogs, and we liked what we saw of the breed. So when she asked us if we would take in a pregnant bitch and take care of her and her litter in return for our choice of best male, we jumped at the chance. A good purebred male went for at least $300. So we set up an empty wading pool, and waited for puppies. They came, as puppies do, at 3 in the morning: four male, four female, and one "fading puppy" who died after about 24 hours. The breeder wanted us to keep track of which pup was which, and since there’s few things other than gender to distinguish one Samoyed pup from another, I hit on the idea of painting their tails with food color. It made for an interesting sight, especially at feeding time, when all these colorful tails were wiggling about from under momma dog’s belly. We wound up with the one known up until then as "Green Tail Male".(we had blue, green, red and undyed, four for each gender).

The breeder had some suggestions about feeding, mixed in with a ton of suggestions regarding grooming, exercise, and all the other things that go into dog ownership. Most of the advise seemed pretty sound, and we took it to heart. No wet food was at the top of the list. It’s damned good advice, too: Green Tail Male (aka Monk) never missed what he never had, was perfectly happy with dry food, and at age 12, has all his teeth, and incidently, has already reached the high end of life expectancy for a male Sam. We’ve never had to clean his teeth. They’re still white and sharp. He has no gum disease. He’s currently about three pound below his peak weight when he was seven, and just about ideal. For his age, he’s a healthy dog, albeit slow and stiff.

She had one other piece of advice. Don’t feed the dog any dry food containing ethoxyquin.

I was puzzled. I had no idea what ethoxyquin was.

"It’s an antioxidant," she amplified. "They’ve been using it instead of Vitamin E as a preservative to prevent mold and rancidity."

"What’s wrong with it?" I wanted to know.

"It’s been associated with a whole host of canid maladies, including aggravated hip dysplasia, sterility, low sperm counts, temperamental problems, and still-born litters. It may be causing mutations, as well."

So we went looking for dry kibble that didn’t have ethoxyquin. That turned out to be difficult; all the major brands had it. In fact, we could only find one in the local area that didn’t have it: a brand called Nature’s Recipe. Monk seemed to like it just fine, and if it was more expensive than the other brands, it was still cheaper than tinned food, and healthier besides.

Over the next year, the breeder, who had a Masters’ in biochemistry and had done advanced study at Heidelberg, went on a public campaign against Monsanto, the company that made ethoxyquin. Aside from a rapidly-growing body of anecdotal evidence from distressed breeders who had noticed detrimental effects on their breeds, she was investigating the widespread use of ethoxyquin in poultry feed, and worrying about how far along the food chain the stuff might be spreading. It wasn’t allowed in human food, although there were reports that Monsanto was pressing for that.

At that point, I talked to my vet about it. We’d notice that they fed their convalescing animals a brand that had ethoxyquin, and asked if they were familiar with our breeder’s opinions on the substance.

They were, and pooh-poohed the whole notion, saying they hadn’t noticed any detrimental results, and pointing out that a raft of studies had been done prior to its introduction into pet food. (Dry cat food had it too).

So I went to the breeder and talked to her about it. She wasn’t particularly surprised or disturbed. She noted that the pet food companies that sold the dry products with ethoxyquin provided the veterinarians with a lot of products; not just free samples, but supplies such as cages, port-a-pets, tables, medical equipment, and the like. All in return for the cachet of having the friendly local vet use their product. They also had considerable influence with the professional realm as a whole, and could make life extremely difficult for anyone who wanted to rock the boat. The breeder didn’t think our vet was being dishonest, but that he had all sorts of reasons to be disinclined to pursue the matter.

Finally, she was able to get the detailed reports of the studies done on ethoxyquin. Various studies had been done on groups of dogs. (There’s no "of course" to this: I still have a bottle of dog shampoo that has at the bottom of the directions, the politically correct statement: "This product was not used in animal testing." Well, it has now.)

She vanished for several months to do a detailed analysis of the studies. She emerged triumphant, and with compelling evidence that the studies were at best incompetent, and at worse, seriously compromised. My favorite example was the one where they had dogs separated by gender into control and test groups, and lost track of which was which. Dogs aren’t like parrots; it’s pretty easy, even with puppies, to tell which is which. Reach between your dog’s legs (don’t try this with a strange Doberman). If you encounter something, either your bitch is desperately ill and needs medical attention, or you have a male dog. It’s not difficult. None the less, they lost track of which were the males and which were the females about half-way through a twelve-week study, and never did get it straightened out.

Monsanto paid for the studies, lock, stock and barrel.

She went on the offense, writing articles for dog fancy and husbandry magazines, and mounting an ongoing campaign at dog shows. It never got to court, and Monsanto never acknowledged her complaints. But within two years, ethoxyquin was quietly pulled from the market, and now is used nowhere. They’ve all gone back to using vitamin E. She won. And the public never knew about it.

About the time this was happening, the GOP, under the auspices of Newt Gingrich, went on the offensive against the FDA, complaining bitterly about the length and cost of the testing process. Newt even made a remark about the FDA being a mass murderer through bureaucratic delays, perhaps the most vicious and irresponsible thing the man has said during a long and vicious and irresponsible career. There was pressure on to reduce the testing process, allow privatization of funding (I’m sure Monsanto was pleased about that). The really pathetic thing is that the FDA had a superb track record in that regard, and America had the shortest approval time of any western industrial nation, and one of the best safety records. But Newt was demagoging on his favorite bugaboo, that eeeeevil socialist/liberal nanny government.

The result was that companies were permitted to do their own funding for health and safety studies of their products (the dimbulb libertarian rationale was that, being private, they would be both more efficient and totally scrupulous. There has never been a shred of evidence to support such a panglossian fantasy, but that was Newt’s world, and now it’s ours.)

Californians can tell you a thing or two about that. Standard Oil. Exxonmobil and Chevrontexaco commissioned and paid for the studies on the safety and effectiveness of the oxygenate they proposed to add to gasoline to make it burn hotter and cleaner, MTBEs. It never occured to them to check to see if it could get into the water supply. It did, and it’s costing California billions to clean up and change to a different oxygenate.

If you wonder how it’s possible for America, with its great universities, to be able to outspend much of the world on "scientific research" while falling further and further behind in pure science, here’s your answer: the money is being spent by companies to test and study products in which they have a vested economic interest, and the universities and labs doing the studies have a vested economic interest in making the companies happy. And the government that those same companies contribute such lavish campaign funds and lobbying for is overseeing these studies to make sure the results are satisfactory to people that matter.

Your dog didn’t matter. What made you think you’ll get any better treatment?