US health boss Kennedy calls medical journals corrupt
For years, Mr Robert F. Kennedy Jr has attacked the huge influence of the pharmaceutical industry in the US healthcare system. PHOTO: AFP
WASHINGTON - US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has attacked major medical journals, accusing them of collaborating with the pharmaceutical industry and threatening to bar government scientists from publishing in them.
Mr Kennedy, who has long promoted misinformation about vaccines and is pushing to overhaul federal public health policy, launched his latest broadside against the scientific community in a podcast on May 27, singling out a number of prestigious medical research journals.
'We're probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Jama and those other journals because they're all corrupt,' Mr Kennedy alleged.
'So unless these journals change dramatically, we are going to stop NIH scientists from publishing there, and we're going to create our own journals,' Mr Kennedy said, referring to the National Institutes of Health, a huge federal research agency.
For years, Mr Kennedy has attacked the huge influence of the pharmaceutical industry in the US health care system.
He had previously attacked these storied medical journals.
Dating back to the 19th century, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine and Jama play a key role in medical and biomedical research.
The studies they publish are peer reviewed – examined carefully by experts in the field of study being addressed.
But Mr Kennedy argued that these publications are not reliable because, he said, they are controlled by big pharmaceutical companies.
'If you want to publish in a journal, you have to pay US$10,000 (S$12,896) to get the study published. So the pharmaceutical company concocts a study that shows the outcome that they want,' Mr Kennedy said, 'and they'll publish that.'
Mr Kennedy highlighted in particular allegations by Dr Marcia Angell, a former senior figure at the New England Journal of Medicine.
In the early 2000s, Dr Angell published a book on the pharmaceutical industry that argued that much of the clinical research published these days is not to be believed.
Mr Kennedy has also accused several health agencies under his watch of being at the service of pharmaceutical companies.
He has undertaken a major overhaul of his department to fight what he calls rampant bureaucracy and restore public trust in health care authorities. AFP
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