Fighting back against the high-handed nay-sayers

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, authors David A. Shaywitz and Thomas P. Stossel take on high-minded academics who relentlessly attack university-pharma associations.  Labeling such critics as "PharmaScolds" they point out that relationships between university researchers and medical product companies are under relentless attack by critics who portray these associations as a morality play in which noble academics struggle to resist the dark, corrupting influence of industry. Then they follow with this question: why are leading disease-research foundations increasingly choosing to partner with industry rather than condemn it?

"The goal of medical research is not to publish papers,
but to develop new treatments..."

The answer is that by prioritizing the needs of patients, medical philanthropies remain keenly aware of something academic critics of industry may have forgotten as they've scaled the ivory tower ladder. The goal of medical research is not to publish papers, but to develop new treatments for people suffering from disease. And translating laboratory research into new therapies, in the words of Robert Beall, president of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, is something "academics are really not good at."

Read the full article here.
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Dr. Shaywitz is a management consultant in New Jersey.

Dr. Stossel is a professor of medicine at Harvard and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.