Amateur Megalomania

Ten on U.S. Pain Pill Panel Had Industry Ties

The NYT wades in today with a darkly ominous lead.

Ten of the 32 government drug advisers who supported the continued marketing of the pain relievers Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx have consulted in recent years for the drugs’ makers, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The pharmacokinetics and general safety of drugs such as Celebrex and Vioxx are fiendishly complex issues, despite what the NYT and other advocacy groups would have you believe. Subsequently, as is the case with any specialty, the competent population of subject matter experts shrinks rapidly as a function of this complexity. It should come as no surprise that these experts, being of exceptionally high value to a relative sparse population of customers, would have dealings with just about every known player in the area of expertise. A ready supply of ‘untainted’ experts aren’t sitting in a crate somewhere, waiting to be deployed as unbiased experts the moment the NYT sniffs the air and declares the stench of corruption.

Experts usually ‘do’, which means they ‘do’ with the companies that pay them to ‘do’. These same experts are frequently in position to explain and counsel people who ‘do not do’, such as regulatory bodies and representatives of the people. Of course it is in the financial interest of these experts to see a healthy, successful pharma industry, but at the same time, these experts rely on something the NYT probably couldn’t recognize if their lives depended on it.

Their good name and reputation.

Industry experts traffic in reputation, and these reputations will make the difference in a lucrative livelihood mediating constructive exchanges between regulatory agencies and drug makers, and being quickly labeled as unprincipled hacks, cast out and ignored by both sides. They are worth precisely as much trust as they carry with both sides, regardless of their technical prowess.

These people were invited on the panel with the full knowledge of their past interactions with industry, and to attempt to smear the decision of the panel based upon this knowledge is a form of retroactive assassination. Had these experts voted the other way, no doubt the NYT would be crowing about how evil Pharma was finally brought to a reckoning by the Virtuous and Upright men, formerly paid as consultants.

The Advisory panel decision was a triumph of science over hysteria. Since the NYT didn’t get its way, they naturally try to reopen the issue on the emotional front.

Filed under: Economics