Jeanne Lenzer, associate editor of the British Medical Journal, has published an investigative report showing how the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not honest when publishing disclaimers in their studies stating that “they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products.”
This news does not come as a surprise to those of us in the alternative media, but it is significant that the report was published in one the world’s most respected medical journals, the British Medical Journal. Lenzer explains why this is so significant:
The CDC’s image as an independent watchdog over the public health has given it enormous prestige, and its recommendations are occasionally enforced by law.
She goes on to quote Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine:
The CDC has enormous credibility among physicians, in no small part because the agency is generally thought to be free of industry bias. Financial dealings with biopharmaceutical companies threaten that reputation.
CDC Receives Millions of Dollars in Industry Gifts and Funding
Lenzer goes on to document in her investigative report how the CDC has been receiving millions of dollars in “industry gifts and funding” since at least 1983.
Despite the agency’s disclaimer, the CDC does receive millions of dollars in industry gifts and funding, both directly and indirectly, and several recent CDC actions and recommendations have raised questions about the science it cites, the clinical guidelines it promotes, and the money it is taking.
Lenzer writes that in 1983 the CDC was “authorised” to accept this funding from pharmaceutical companies, and that in 1995 Congress actually passed legislation that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton “to encourage relationships between industry and the CDC.”
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