[Cz-biology] [Cz-health-sci] Merck proposal

Thu Nov 1 00:12:56 CDT 2007

MessageI very much agree with the objections raised by others, one additional area where Merck has put profits first was their aggressive and well-funded political lobbying at the state government level throughout the country to have HPV vaccination school-entry mandates laws passed, once their Gardisal hit the market. They were so successful they even got the governor of Texas to sign an executive order to this effect. Although HPV vaccination for middle school girls is certainly a good public health measure, and ultimately a mandate might be appropriate, there are many steps necessary in properly considering mandate laws, and Merck went around the usual professional groups to rush this process in their focus on maximizing profits. While their products are generally much more health positive, their profit motives and likelihood of bias are really no different than any other big industry including the tobacco industry. 

--
Norman A. Constantine, Ph.D.
Clinical Professor, School of Public Health 
University of California, Berkeley
Director, Center for Research on Adolescent Health and Development 
Public Health Institute
Phone: 925.284.8118  Fax: 925.284.8107
http://sph.berkeley.edu/faculty/constantine.html
http://crahd.phi.org/

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Larry Sanger 
To: 'Biology Workgroup List' ; cz-health-sci at mail.citizendium.org 
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 8:24 AM
Subject: [Cz-health-sci] [Cz-biology] Merck proposal

Thanks to everyone for your comments, on the lists and privately.  I'm finding this pretty fascinating.  Clearly some decision has to be made, but if people still have more comments and debate, I would like to see them.  I will not prejudge the matter, but I would like the reserve the right to actually make the decision, as this concerns a possible (low-level) organizational "partnership."  But it really does seem to turn on whether the partnership would enhance or detract from our own reputation (among professionals) for credibility.

--Larry

  -----Original Message-----
  From: cz-biology-bounces at mail.citizendium.org [mailto:cz-biology-bounces at mail.citizendium.org] On Behalf Of Clinton Jenkins
  Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:49 AM
  To: cz-biology at mail.citizendium.org
  Subject: Re: [Cz-biology] Cz-biology Digest, Vol 3, Issue 21

  I'm against this idea of letting a pharmaceutical company link its material into all of the medical condition articles. The authors of the individual citizendium articles should decide if such a link is appropriate or not. I suppose there is nothing to stop someone at Merck from adding those links to individual pages, but I'd be wary of allowing such a clear commercial interest be in an approved version.

  I agree though that there could be good information in the Merck articles, but a direct link would imply that we view them as a primary source of information. Aren't there similar sources of info, like at the CDC or NIH?

  Clinton

  -----
  Message: 1
  Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:44:39 -0400
  From: "Larry Sanger" <sanger at citizendium.org>
  Subject: [Cz-biology] Merck proposal
  To: "'Biology Workgroup List'" <cz-biology at mail.citizendium.org>,
      <cz-health-sci at mail.citizendium.org>
  Message-ID: <004b01c81b2d$4f6bc400$0202a8c0 at D7WRQ591>
  Content-Type: text/plain;    charset="us-ascii"

  All,

  The following is a proposal we received.  I have some comments after it.

  ========
  First, let me applaud your effort to provide a wiki with content from expert
  contributors. There is a great deal of information available free online,
  though not all of it is reliable.

  Second, I propose a collaboration between Citizendium and the Merck Manuals
  department at Merck & Co., Inc. This department, of which I'm a staff member
  (Executive Editor, Electronic Publications), publishes The Merck Manual, a
  print and online textbook created by expert contributors.

  We are prepared to place links in your External Links section of Citizendium
  topics to related material in our online version of The Merck Manual. Two
  examples:

  Subject: Guillain Barre Syndrome. 
  Your page: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Guillain-Barre_syndrome 
  The link in External Links would go to:
  http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec16/ch223/ch223d.html

  Subject: Otitis Externa. 
  Your page: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Otitis_externa  
  The link in External Links would go to:
  http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec08/ch088/ch088c.html

  Unfortunately, we are not in a position to author material for you, but we'd
  be delighted to add value to your pages with links to our material. We
  invite you to visit The Manual at http://www.merck.com/mmpe/index.html to
  determine for yourself whether links to this content is acceptable and
  desirable. In a preliminary review, I found 40 to 50 Citizendium topics to
  which we could contribute.

  Please let me know if you are interested in such a collaboration.
  ========

  I can say (publicly on this list) that this would be welcome to me.   Merck
  has an excellent reputation, and it seems unlikely that there would be
  anything in their manuals that we should not send users to.

  More important, perhaps, is that this very small request (it's basically
  just a request to add 50 links to CZ) might be the beginning of a useful
  collaboration.

  I'm inclined to say "yes," but I wanted to get your feedback first.

  --Larry

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