Research or Marketing? Merck’s Use of Seeding Trials - plus, New Acupuncture Study
JR wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
Just when we thought we’d heard it all…
A 1999 Merck & Co. study of its since-withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, touted to participating doctors and patients as meant to show whether Vioxx caused fewer stomach problems than another drug, was primarily a stealth marketing strategy, researchers report.
The true purpose was to get lots of doctors and patients in the habit of using Vioxx just in time for its launch, according to doctors who uncovered internal Merck memos discussing the strategy behind the study, called ADVANTAGE. They did so while reviewing roughly a million Merck documents for plaintiffs’ lawyers preparing for trials in Vioxx lawsuits.
This kind of stealth marketing is known as a “seeding trial.” In an interview with Dr. Daniel Carlat for the Carlat Psychiatry Blog, Dr. Kevin Hill defines such a trial as “a study that is designed to appear as though it is answering a scientific question but whose true […]
Read the rest of this great post here