Media List Of Medical Experts Who Aren't Pharma Whores Goes Public, Controversy Ensues

See update at the bottom of this post.

Many of you already know the work of journalists Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee, who among other things authored this lovely takedown of "The Infinite Mind" radio show a few months ago (I was also critical of conflicts of interest in guests on the show who appeared to praise anti-depressants and deny that there was suicidality attached to their use). Around the same time, the pair put together a list of 100 medical experts who hadn't received funding from Big Pharma in five years or who separately pretty much were critical of pharma despite having gotten money from them within five years. The list was intended for media sorts only, the pair's way of getting the pharma influence out of health stories in the American media.

Now the list has gone public through the British Medical Journal, for whom the two sometimes write. The list went public basically to blunt criticism of who was on it and who wasn't by some in the medical community as well as by pharma defenders in the blogosphere.

Before I go further and since this whole affair is about conflicts, I should probably clear the decks concerning possible ones on this end. I was a fairly early recipient of the list, defended the hell out of the pair when they were criticized over their criticism of the radio show and am friendly with both in a journalists trading emails every so often sort of way. As a journalist, I was heartened to see some of my colleagues try to provide others in the field with a list of medical experts who wouldn't be tainted by questions of pharma influence and whom, in turn, the public could rely on to at least have clean hands (their medical opinions likely vary in quality, but that's almost beside the point). I can assure you that a list like this is handy to have especially for reporters on deadline and for reporters who are trying to get unbiased views of medical treatments.

Not long after the list began to circulate, Lenzer and Brownlee were attacked and their list was savaged as being filled with doctors allegedly tainted by plaintiff's attorneys expert witness fees. The attacks dogs were over at drugwonks.com (a site with immense conflicts of its own) and PointofLaw.com.

It's worth noting that one of drugwonks.com's authors is Peter Pitts who was one of the guests on the much-criticized radio program. Makes this whole affair even tastier.

Anyway, the list must have gotten some attention in medical circles--both pro and con--and so the BMJ published it last week, presumably so the public could see for itself and reach its own conclusions. I've not been able to turn up links to the list itself and I won't post my own copy. Obviously, the BMJ also published the list as a mild "oh really?" to its critics. Many of the doctors on the list are people I know and I think they are a legitimate group, so it's not clear what the critics' point is--aside from exercising their vocal cords--especially since, as far as I know, most psychiatrists on the list have never taken a penny from plaintiffs attorneys. I'm not sure I can get into too much detail about who is on the list or not yet because I haven't seen the list on the BMJ site so far. Although this blog entry by the BMJ's editor notes its public existence and also notes that I went to bat for Lenzer and Brownlee during the radio show fracas. (Nice to find myself linked to by BMJ on what had to be one of the worst Mondays for me in recent years. It amuses me no end that I get more links from British blogs than I do from media, with an exception or two, in Seattle where I am based.)

I suspect much of the heat directed at the list was principally due to the inclusion of British psychiatrist David Healy (OK, he's the one name I'll mention), who is a longtime critic of anti-depressants and has testified for plaintiffs in various trials involving safety allegations around SSRIs. There are other names on the list that no doubt would raise the hackles of critics, but part of what PointofLaw.com was cheesed off about was that he couldn't get a copy of the list because he's affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, a generally pro-pharma think tank, so that the blog could then post on who had appeared on behalf on plaintiffs.

All's fair in love, war and advocacy I suppose, but I think critics of the few docs on the list who may have appeared on behalf of various plaintiffs suing pharma companies have missed a key aspect of what it is expert witnesses do. They lend credibility to plaintiffs' cases because they are able to walk through clinical and scientific evidence of misconduct by Company X or Y and, in some cases, convince juries and judges that they know exactly what they are talking about. That's the exact opposite of various medical experts in, say, the mental health world where too often the academic researcher being quoted on a story is on the pharma dole, but never ever tells the reporter that.

Why critics have a problem with transparency of sources is lost on me.

UPDATE: A copy of the list, mostly complete, is now available right here.