Nothing good. (She is a visiting scholar at the National Institutes of Health, Clinical Center, Department of Bioethics)
First, she is peddling the questionable claim that up to 30 percent of medical care in the US is unnecessary based on a misreading of the Dartmouth Atlas which is already coming under fierce critcism.
Second, she is questioning the efficacy of all flu vaccines.
And now it seems she is using her perch as a visiting scholar to coordinate the writing of a letter to NIH Director Collins by 100 so-called scientists and experts demanding that the NIH study the impact of conflicts of interests on medical research, etc.
And it appears that most of the signatories to the letter are drawn from a list of people that Brownlee and her anti-science collaborator and serial retractor Jeanne Lenzer put together a year ago that they deemed free of pharma influence. Pharma influence perhaps, but not free of trial attorney association or affiliation with Socialist organizations that regard profit of any sort in healthcare immoral. Those too are conflicts or biases -- along with a willingness to abuse one's government position to aid and abet a narrow political agenda -- but those are not to be the subject of any NIH study suggested by the letter writers. Perfectly fine to be free of pharma support... the question is, are they free of conflicts now that they are are petitioning the NIH where the woman who helped organize and coronate them as unconflicted now resides as a visiting ethicist? I guess anything is permissible as long as no money from drug companies is involved. So goes the new morality...
You can compare the signatories to the holier than thou missive and Shannon's circle of purity here..
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/browse_thread/thread/52ddee237f64e8e4?pli=1
www.pharmedout.org/NIHletter.pdf
Someone ought to investigate Brownlee's role in soliciting the letter, whether she used her time or position at NIH to coordinate the effort. Also, it would be interesting to note if merely writing opinion pieces is what her job entails and whether it is an appropriate use of tax dollars to subsidize an activity that could otherwise be performed in the private sector.
First, she is peddling the questionable claim that up to 30 percent of medical care in the US is unnecessary based on a misreading of the Dartmouth Atlas which is already coming under fierce critcism.
Second, she is questioning the efficacy of all flu vaccines.
And now it seems she is using her perch as a visiting scholar to coordinate the writing of a letter to NIH Director Collins by 100 so-called scientists and experts demanding that the NIH study the impact of conflicts of interests on medical research, etc.
And it appears that most of the signatories to the letter are drawn from a list of people that Brownlee and her anti-science collaborator and serial retractor Jeanne Lenzer put together a year ago that they deemed free of pharma influence. Pharma influence perhaps, but not free of trial attorney association or affiliation with Socialist organizations that regard profit of any sort in healthcare immoral. Those too are conflicts or biases -- along with a willingness to abuse one's government position to aid and abet a narrow political agenda -- but those are not to be the subject of any NIH study suggested by the letter writers. Perfectly fine to be free of pharma support... the question is, are they free of conflicts now that they are are petitioning the NIH where the woman who helped organize and coronate them as unconflicted now resides as a visiting ethicist? I guess anything is permissible as long as no money from drug companies is involved. So goes the new morality...
You can compare the signatories to the holier than thou missive and Shannon's circle of purity here..
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/browse_thread/thread/52ddee237f64e8e4?pli=1
www.pharmedout.org/NIHletter.pdf
Someone ought to investigate Brownlee's role in soliciting the letter, whether she used her time or position at NIH to coordinate the effort. Also, it would be interesting to note if merely writing opinion pieces is what her job entails and whether it is an appropriate use of tax dollars to subsidize an activity that could otherwise be performed in the private sector.
