Margaret Cook on how the influence of drugs companies has seeped, through their control of research and even of the official regulator, into the fabric of medical life’'Trying to force a financial camel through the eye of a scientific needle” was the metaphor used to describe the Herculean task of regulating pharmaceutical companies. This was the view of one witness to last month’s session of the House of Commons health select committee on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. The session was an eye-opener, shedding light on doctors who prescribe medication without having all the necessary information for that purpose; and on a weak and uncoordinated regulatory system that enables the pharmaceutical industry to further its interests without sufficient regard to public health.The industry’s influence has seeped into the fabric of medical life. It has tapped the worst of human motives - money, power and glory. A megabillion-dollar global business, it has a Big Brother potency outstripping that of governments, at which it has been known to snap its fingers as it breaks safety rules to suit its own commercial ends.
