If I may propose a warning label for pharmaceuticals: Don't mix with money. Here are just a few reasons why: - Running Phase I drug trials on prisoners, homeless people (recruited from Eli Lilly-funded homeless shelters), undocumented immigrants, and people recently released from prison unable to find other employment, people in developing countries where there's little to no oversight (not that there's any real oversight in the above US cases either!).
Thank you Eliza for shining a light on so many incidences of unscrupulous behaviour and reminding us of how meaningless the phrase "informed consent" is! I love your description of how the PR is required to "manipulate conditions in such a way that more of the product is sold" .
Hi Eliza, I'm not a professional bioethicist but I do serve on both a hospital ethics committee and the hospital's IRB. Much of what you write in this post is helpful, but also please be aware that doing drug research on prisoners, homeless folks, or other vulnerable populations sets off major alarm bells at the FDA, as do material incentives to participate in research. Every single investigator and sub-investigator in a research trial has to submit pretty extensive conflict of interest forms to the IRB and the institution itself can get dinged pretty hard if COI's are uncovered. NOT saying it never happens, and NOT saying that there's no such thing as for-profit IRB's that are more slippery than others, but it's harder than you might imagine to corrupt the IRB/ COI process. It's much easier to do bad research that outright corrupt research: IRB's don't generally check data or offer much commentary on research design if it seems plausible.
In general, the old rule: "don't attribute to malice that which stupidity is sufficient to explain" applies to medical research as well as most other human endeavors.
Re: bioethics, yes, I agree, it's become a festival of Wokeness- OMG what the Hastings Center is sending out these days is almost embarrassing- but sitting where I do in a hospital setting, I see a pretty clear distinction between academic bioethics in think-tanks and at universities and what happens in hospitals and public health organizations. Out in the field, I think there's a backlash brewing against things like race-based distribution of pandemic resources or the absolutely uncritical view of trans "affirmative care" when some docs who aren't ideologues see kids declaring themselves trans who are, on the face of it, dealing with lots of other problems too.
Absolutely there's a collusion between academic bioethics, law and ideological clinics and their supporters in some of the medical associations, but that ideology is not universal.
Finally, re: another commentator's mentioning of Jennifer Bilek: the woman is a frothing anti-Semite who blames Jewish billionaires (and pretty much only Jewish billionaires) for the entire transgender craze. Proceed with extreme caution.
A “frothing anti-Semite?” First, at least one of the billionaires Bilek has named is not Jewish; second, she has said she always has thought of them as simply powerful white men, and it never even occurred to her that they were Jewish. She’s in no way a “frothing anti-Semite;” this is a spurious charge invented by her critics. Has it occurred to you that calling someone anti-Semitic for criticizing a Jewish person for any reason is anti-Semitic? It’s extremely coddling- benevolent racism- and also assumes that the person is thinking about another person’s Jewishness when criticizing them for something unrelated, which only serves to reveal that the accuser was the one thinking of the person’s Jewishness.
What a libelous ad hominem to shoehorn in at the end of your “bioethics” apologism there. Sheesh.
Couldn't have said it half as well myself. Also, I thought that the ability to make money is hugely respected in the US? As a credit to whoever it's made by.
Also puzzled by the idea that Jennifer Bilek is in any way anti-Semitic: as there's no hint of it in any of her writing, as an environmental activist deplatformed by transactivists she suspected of a hidden agenda that might be bigger than its ostensible civil rights campaign. It's hardly of her own choosing where the money trail led to.
And (being one myself for 35 years) environmental activists tend to pay little attention to race or racism except as a social justice issue: with poor, brown & other ethnic peoples most likely to be affected by the siting of polluting and heavy extractive industries. Libellous statements need evidence or should not be made.
I've read Jennifer Bilek's work, taking into account comments about her apparent stance on "Jewish billionaires". The warnings are given in bad faith - that some of the billionaires are Jewish is statement of fact. Bilek's research is very good - and that, I suspect, is why the libellous comments got started: she needed to be discredited quickly.
Hi all, thank you for your replies. May I point out that we are all here in general agreement about our suspicious re: trans ideology? However, it is indisputable that Jennifer Bilek has promoted Keith Woods, who links some nefarious "transhumanism" project to Judaism itself, and who has promoted some pretty vile racist ideology on Youtube and various social medial platforms. As to the objection that "some of the billionaires are in fact Jewish," well, OK, but when you name only Soros, Pritzker, Rothblatt, etc, AND you link to known white supremacists, I'm going to say that's not somebody I'm inviting to my son's bar mitzvah. (She also names the Stryker family, not clear if they are Jewish but apparently lots of people who don't like them say they are, which could be false, not sure, so let's call that a wash.)
I'm sure Bilek is right about many things, and I agree that environmentalism and gender-critical viewpoints have strong connections. If calling her a frothing anti-Semite was over the top, fine, I retract is and will restate: she has many insights into the promotion of trans ideology AND she's promoted the work of known anti-Semites/ white supremacists AND some of her work is perceived as crossing the bounds into stereotypes of Jewish power and money.
Re: bioethics apologism. I've been on a hospital IRB for 7 years and have reviewed dozens of applications and consent forms. All I said was, it's a little more complicated than corrupt IRB's and I also said there's a backlash brewing against woke bioethics, which is really a thing.
In other words, we can disagree about Bilek- who still isn't invited to my son's bar mitzvah- but I'm on this blog because I agree with much of what's been written here and have, in the hospital setting, seen some of these things play out in real time. Medical research has many overlapping rules and regulatory agencies and policies and procedures, everything that Eliza wrote may be true under some circumstances and it's still complicated to get bad or ineffective drugs to market. Once they are approved for something- anything- it's much easier to promote drugs for off-label uses.
Capitalism & its allies as the empire of deceit. That last sentence says it all: "...no better way to enlist bioethicists in the cause of consumer capitalism than to convince them they are working for social justice".
So what should be the last line of defence against all the foregoing corruption is no defence at all.
And now I understand why trans lawyer Martine Rothblatt, as a "founding father of the transgender empire" (Jennifer Bilek), did a Ph.D in medical bioethics: so useful for the transgender "human rights" campaign -- and its ultimate AI/pharmaceutical/surgically assisted goal of becoming "transhuman". With potential for so many court cases.
Carl Elliott's "White Coats, Black Hat" sounds like a must-read.
"Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients" by Ben Goldacre is also well worth it for insights and possible solutions. I was on an NHS research ethics committee for several years, and every trick in the book was used by the drug companies.
Thank you Eliza for shining a light on so many incidences of unscrupulous behaviour and reminding us of how meaningless the phrase "informed consent" is! I love your description of how the PR is required to "manipulate conditions in such a way that more of the product is sold" .
Hi Eliza, I'm not a professional bioethicist but I do serve on both a hospital ethics committee and the hospital's IRB. Much of what you write in this post is helpful, but also please be aware that doing drug research on prisoners, homeless folks, or other vulnerable populations sets off major alarm bells at the FDA, as do material incentives to participate in research. Every single investigator and sub-investigator in a research trial has to submit pretty extensive conflict of interest forms to the IRB and the institution itself can get dinged pretty hard if COI's are uncovered. NOT saying it never happens, and NOT saying that there's no such thing as for-profit IRB's that are more slippery than others, but it's harder than you might imagine to corrupt the IRB/ COI process. It's much easier to do bad research that outright corrupt research: IRB's don't generally check data or offer much commentary on research design if it seems plausible.
In general, the old rule: "don't attribute to malice that which stupidity is sufficient to explain" applies to medical research as well as most other human endeavors.
Re: bioethics, yes, I agree, it's become a festival of Wokeness- OMG what the Hastings Center is sending out these days is almost embarrassing- but sitting where I do in a hospital setting, I see a pretty clear distinction between academic bioethics in think-tanks and at universities and what happens in hospitals and public health organizations. Out in the field, I think there's a backlash brewing against things like race-based distribution of pandemic resources or the absolutely uncritical view of trans "affirmative care" when some docs who aren't ideologues see kids declaring themselves trans who are, on the face of it, dealing with lots of other problems too.
Absolutely there's a collusion between academic bioethics, law and ideological clinics and their supporters in some of the medical associations, but that ideology is not universal.
Finally, re: another commentator's mentioning of Jennifer Bilek: the woman is a frothing anti-Semite who blames Jewish billionaires (and pretty much only Jewish billionaires) for the entire transgender craze. Proceed with extreme caution.
Way to discredit yourself there at the end.
A “frothing anti-Semite?” First, at least one of the billionaires Bilek has named is not Jewish; second, she has said she always has thought of them as simply powerful white men, and it never even occurred to her that they were Jewish. She’s in no way a “frothing anti-Semite;” this is a spurious charge invented by her critics. Has it occurred to you that calling someone anti-Semitic for criticizing a Jewish person for any reason is anti-Semitic? It’s extremely coddling- benevolent racism- and also assumes that the person is thinking about another person’s Jewishness when criticizing them for something unrelated, which only serves to reveal that the accuser was the one thinking of the person’s Jewishness.
What a libelous ad hominem to shoehorn in at the end of your “bioethics” apologism there. Sheesh.
Couldn't have said it half as well myself. Also, I thought that the ability to make money is hugely respected in the US? As a credit to whoever it's made by.
Also puzzled by the idea that Jennifer Bilek is in any way anti-Semitic: as there's no hint of it in any of her writing, as an environmental activist deplatformed by transactivists she suspected of a hidden agenda that might be bigger than its ostensible civil rights campaign. It's hardly of her own choosing where the money trail led to.
And (being one myself for 35 years) environmental activists tend to pay little attention to race or racism except as a social justice issue: with poor, brown & other ethnic peoples most likely to be affected by the siting of polluting and heavy extractive industries. Libellous statements need evidence or should not be made.
I've read Jennifer Bilek's work, taking into account comments about her apparent stance on "Jewish billionaires". The warnings are given in bad faith - that some of the billionaires are Jewish is statement of fact. Bilek's research is very good - and that, I suspect, is why the libellous comments got started: she needed to be discredited quickly.
Hi all, thank you for your replies. May I point out that we are all here in general agreement about our suspicious re: trans ideology? However, it is indisputable that Jennifer Bilek has promoted Keith Woods, who links some nefarious "transhumanism" project to Judaism itself, and who has promoted some pretty vile racist ideology on Youtube and various social medial platforms. As to the objection that "some of the billionaires are in fact Jewish," well, OK, but when you name only Soros, Pritzker, Rothblatt, etc, AND you link to known white supremacists, I'm going to say that's not somebody I'm inviting to my son's bar mitzvah. (She also names the Stryker family, not clear if they are Jewish but apparently lots of people who don't like them say they are, which could be false, not sure, so let's call that a wash.)
I'm sure Bilek is right about many things, and I agree that environmentalism and gender-critical viewpoints have strong connections. If calling her a frothing anti-Semite was over the top, fine, I retract is and will restate: she has many insights into the promotion of trans ideology AND she's promoted the work of known anti-Semites/ white supremacists AND some of her work is perceived as crossing the bounds into stereotypes of Jewish power and money.
Re: bioethics apologism. I've been on a hospital IRB for 7 years and have reviewed dozens of applications and consent forms. All I said was, it's a little more complicated than corrupt IRB's and I also said there's a backlash brewing against woke bioethics, which is really a thing.
In other words, we can disagree about Bilek- who still isn't invited to my son's bar mitzvah- but I'm on this blog because I agree with much of what's been written here and have, in the hospital setting, seen some of these things play out in real time. Medical research has many overlapping rules and regulatory agencies and policies and procedures, everything that Eliza wrote may be true under some circumstances and it's still complicated to get bad or ineffective drugs to market. Once they are approved for something- anything- it's much easier to promote drugs for off-label uses.
Capitalism & its allies as the empire of deceit. That last sentence says it all: "...no better way to enlist bioethicists in the cause of consumer capitalism than to convince them they are working for social justice".
So what should be the last line of defence against all the foregoing corruption is no defence at all.
And now I understand why trans lawyer Martine Rothblatt, as a "founding father of the transgender empire" (Jennifer Bilek), did a Ph.D in medical bioethics: so useful for the transgender "human rights" campaign -- and its ultimate AI/pharmaceutical/surgically assisted goal of becoming "transhuman". With potential for so many court cases.
Carl Elliott's "White Coats, Black Hat" sounds like a must-read.
"Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients" by Ben Goldacre is also well worth it for insights and possible solutions. I was on an NHS research ethics committee for several years, and every trick in the book was used by the drug companies.
Thanks for the title & recommendation.