Faked Pain Study Results can Affect You

In the past year, we ordinary citizens have found our whole world crumbling around us.  The economic situation in the US has precipitated a World-wide economic disaster.  We find out that trusted people in the financial world of Wall Street like Bernard Madoff are actually swindlers of the rich and famous as well as the ordinary investor.  So too, comes to light a similar ruse headed by a man of equivalent stature and esteem in the pain and anesthesiology world as Bernard Madoff was in the financial world.  Meet, Dr. Scott Rueben, anesthesiologist extraordinaire, working for the highly regarded Baystate Medical Center.  In the past decade, millions of Americans were unknowingly affected by his fakery and fiction he published in at least 21 medical studies published in various respected medical journals.  Dr. Rueben's work had "revolutionized" post-operative recovery and helped other doctors and pain specialists better understand the value of using COX2 inhibitors rather than the traditional NSAIDS (non-steroidal Antiinflammatory Drugs).  Or so they thought....

In Dr. Rueben's publications, he touted the effectiveness of the new class of drugs thereby leading to billions of dollars of sales of the COX2 inhibitors for the companies of Merck (Vioxx), Pfizer (Celebrex) and Pfizer (Bextra).  He also recommended the use of Pfizer's Neurontin and Lyrica in combination with the above medications prior to surgery, claiming that they significantly reduced the post operative pain and reliance on addictive pain killers like morphine.  It all sounded good, hundred of thousands of doctors relied on the many published studies (10 published in the same journal, Journal of Anesthesia & Analgesia).  As it turns our ALL of the data and results were faked and fabricated by Dr. Rueben.  Pfizer had paid undisclosed sums of money toward Dr. Rueben's research and Baystate Medical Center.  

Baystate finally caught up with Dr. Rueben's falsifying antics recently after over a decade of allowing fake studies to be published under their name.  Dr. Rueben was on Pfizer's funding list but Baystate says that they did not receive any of the money that Pfizer supposedly paid out to Dr. Rueben.  As many of you know that Vioxx and Bextra were taken off the market in 2004 because they caused an uncommon amount of heart attacks after long term use.  Most doctors agree that the short term use of Celebrex or the other COX2 inhibitors were unlikely to cause long term damage to your heart but may have slowed down your healing time after surgery.  Meantime, Pfizer and friends sold billions of dollars in medications that may not have worked and may have made our recovery time longer, all thanks to their support of one doctor's research and his false & fabricated data on their behalf.

For a more complete story, read Scientific American's great story on "a Medical Maddoff".  So if any of you out there are prescribed Celebrex, just check with your doctor to ensure that he or she knows the truth about the research they might be basing their clinical actions on...that most of it was faked and purely made up in someone's mind.

Share on Facebook

Comments

[Ajlouny]

Too many drugs have come to market bearing pedigrees which imply that they've been clinically tested, through peer review, and through rigorous FDA evaluation. And then after millions of patients take the drug, it proves dangerous or even deadly.

[MBT Shoes]

It's so nice to have you do all of the research for us. It makes our decision making so much easier!! Thanks.