Welcome to today’s heaping dose of cynicism, to start off the weekend right: Scandal has hit none other than the Nobel Prize, after it was revealed that a member of the Nobel selection committee also sat on the board of AstraZeneca, a pharmaceuticals juggernaut that will benefit from this year’s award for medicine.
The 2008 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine went to three people this year, Luc Montagnier and his (ahem, female) partner Françoise Barre-Sinoussi for discovering HIV, and Harald zur Hausen for his work on the human papilloma virus (HPV) and its link to cervical cancer.
Wouldn’t you know it, AstraZeneca just happens to have a big fat stake in two lucrative HPV vaccines.
To make matters worse:
Two senior figures in the process that chose Mr. zur Hausen have strong links with the pharmaceutical company, which has also recently begun sponsoring the Nobel website and promotional subsidiary. The company strongly denies any wrongdoing.
Ah yes, well as long as they deny any wrongdoing! No matter that these sponsorships are estimated to cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next three years. Also mildly fishy is the fact that the chairman of the five-person committee that assesses Nobel candidates served as a paid consultant for AstraZeneca in 2006.
And as if improper drug company ties weren’t enough, there’s also the little matter of expenses-paid trips to China for Nobel committee members, made with the intention of “tell[ing Chinese] officials how candidates are selected for prizes.”
The anti-corruption unit of the Swedish police is reportedly starting a preliminary investigation—though Michael Sohlman, executive director of the Nobel Foundation, has dismissed the whole hubbub as a media ploy. Meanwhile, the rest of us can cry into our smörgåsar and wait for Santa to announce his sponsorship deal with Pfizer.
Related:
RB: Note to Media: They Give Nobel Prizes to Women These Days
RB: Clinic to Reveal All Doctor-Drug Industry Ties on the Web
RB: Drug Company Pocket-Padding: The Latest Chapter
December 20th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
The award for HPV is not the only one that is tainted. The other half of the award went for HIV.
Nobel committee member Pr. Jan Andersson, the Nobel “Spokesperson” for the award, is on the payroll of GlaxoSmithKline since 1999 for hiv vaccines, and is founder of AVARIS, a Swedish company producing treatments and vaccine for hiv.
How convenient! Whatever sells hiv vaccine will benefit him directly!
He too, by the way, is also being investigated by the dept of corruption. That makes 3 out of 5 of the prize choosing members currently under suspicion of conflicts of interest and benefiting from the choice of awards.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:50 am
[...] Certain members of the selection committee could have very well taken bribes. This is a contagion. Bidding for Senate seats, Nobel prizes….it’s all like a badly shot [...]
December 28th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
For years, thousands of people worldwide, myself included, have found it strange that Abram Hoffer, M.D. has never been awarded a Nobel Prize for his important work on the natural, biological causes and cures for mental illness. Now it makes perfect sense: why would the Nobel committee choose someone whose discovery detracts from the income of Big Pharma? Dr. Hoffer was one of the original researchers who proved that pyroluria is one very important and widespread cause of mental disorders ranging from depression and anxiety to paranoia and schizophrenia. The late scientist, Linus Pauling, gave this field of medicine a name in 1968, calling it “orthomolecular medicine.” “Ortho” means “correct” and “molecular” refers to the body’s biochemistry. This type of treatment uses substances normally present in the body, in optimal amounts, to cure mental illness. Orthomolecular is now practiced in 39 countries and Japan alone has over 30,000 practitioners while the U.S. might have a few hundred. This is the way mental healthcare SHOULD have been practiced for the last half century: using proven medical lab tests to uncover the biological CAUSES of mental illness, then rebalancing the person’s BIOchemistry with all-natural BIOchemicals such as B-3, zinc, amino acids, etc., but Big Pharma and the American Psychiatric Assn, the APA, don’t WANT anyone to know about orthomolecular medicine. They know how much money they’d lose if people were cured of their mental illness. As it stands, our traditional mental healthcare system is all about turning a patient into a customer-for-life because that’s where the money is. Pyroluria is quite common – you can find info on it on the net. Also, see Amazon for books on orthomolecular medicine including some of Dr. Hoffer’s 35 books such as Adventures in Psychiatry.The Secrets to Recovery from Mental Illness (my book) is a primer on orthomolecular medicine written by a layperson for other laypeople. Carl Pfeiffer, M.D. was also an orthomolecular specialist and wrote two important books including Mental and Elemental Nutrients and Nutrition and Mental Illness. Many libraries carry these books. Orthomolecular Medicine is truly America’s Best-Kept Secret. If a person’s WANTS to recover from a mental disorder,orthomolecular medicine is the way to go.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:21 am
This confirms the erosion of the character of the prize.
Alfred Nobel must be stirring in his grave.
Where so noble a Prize at least rectified the humanly harmful uses of dynamite, some guys instead inserted a virtual Trojan horse, “sneaked in dynamite inside,” harming the reputation of the prize.
This results in increasing doubts about the prize, and more and more scientists could shun it, finding it is not really that necessary for achievement and true progress in Science.
Wonder who could now be the cranks?
Thanks, Discovery!
December 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Your reasoning really hits home when you think about how the drug companies have stood mute on inhaled mold and its spores causing infections and illness. Now that they are in the process of marketing and developing antifungal drugs which can cost about $36,300 for a “loading dose-83 days” of Caspofungin, it seems that they are amazingly supportive of knowledge about mold illnesses. The thousands and thousands of people who are suffering from mold illnesses should be able to finally be the benefactors of new research since 2002. However, the extreme and totally unreasonable cost of the new antifungal drugs will make it impossible for most to get relief and treatment for severe and life threatening mold illnesses. We are a corrupt and greedy civilization that needs drastic overhall in our moral and ethical behavior. Keep up the good work. If it had not been for your constant vigilance and commentary over the past two years I would not have discovered that I am in stage 4 of candidiasis osteomyelitis and that protheca wickerhamii is a flag that indicates the seriousness of where I stand now.
Sincerely,
Lee Daniels
December 29th, 2008 at 11:18 am
[...] Click here for more… « Increasing Acetyl-L-Carnitine [...]
December 31st, 2008 at 3:52 am
Interesting story, but holy shit …
[...] The 2008 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine went to three people this year, Luc Montagnier and his (ahem, female) partner Françoise Barre-Sinoussi for discovering HIV [...]
… you’re astonishingly sexist.
January 5th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
RAS, in case you’re not joking, if you look at the link I used on the word “female” (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/realitybase/2008/10/06/note-to-media-they-give-nobel-prizes-to-women-these-days/) you’ll see I’m referring to a mistake by the mainstream media aout Barre-Sinoussi’s sex — in other words, they all called her a man.
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:34 am
GR8 Ideas, I never saw it like that before, do you have more blogs about this?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:32 pm
cheap home insurance [url="http://www.eliseogallery.com/Home-Insurance.html"]homeowners insurance[/url] http://www.eliseogallery.com/Home-Insurance.html 020027
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 pm
life quotes [url="http://www.eliseogallery.com/Life-Insurance.html"]life quotes[/url] http://www.eliseogallery.com/Life-Insurance.html iwq
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:31 am
cheap life insurance [url="http://www.eliseogallery.com/Life-Insurance.html"]cheap life insurance[/url] http://www.eliseogallery.com/Life-Insurance.html 186
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 am
homeowners insurance [url="http://www.eliseogallery.com/Home-Insurance.html"]homeowners insurance[/url] http://www.eliseogallery.com/Home-Insurance.html %))
October 26th, 2009 at 11:58 am
http://www.arkhamgames.com/viagra.html [url="http://www.arkhamgames.com/viagra.html"]viagra[/url] viagra
October 27th, 2009 at 12:35 am
Hi, I don’t like commenting but I did find this helpful for newbies on this topic. TY