18 September 2018 - Dr. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, has long been a critic of the pharmaceutical industry. 

This industry is far from immune to criticism, nor should it be. However, Dr. Angell’s critiques tend to expose her lack of knowledge of the workings of the drug R&D process and the important relationship that exists between academia and industry.

Her latest foray into this debate appeared as an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “Transparency Can’t Stop Corruption”. Dr. Angell starts with the sad story of Dr. Jose Baselga, the former chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. A leading cancer researcher, Dr. Baselga resigned from his post when it was revealed that he had not disclosed income he received from biopharmaceutical companies in articles that he published in major medical journals. In this day and age, that is a major offense. Readers have a right to know about any potential conflicts of interest on the part of the authors.

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