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Published online 11 November 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1219
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Company sues researcher over unfavourable review
Biopure says meta-analysis harmed its product.
A biomedical researcher at the US National Institutes of Health has been sued for publishing a study that linked a class of blood substitutes to increased risk of heart attack and death.
Biopure, a company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accused Charles Natanson of making "false and defamatory statements" about the company's blood substitute, Hemopure, both in a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association1 and in letters sent to health officials in the United Kingdom, Greece and South Africa.
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It is truly a shame that corporations often see their job as being to get the dollars instead of providing a good product. In that light, studies such as Natanson's are bad publicity instead of being important information that can benefit the public good. Given that, one can understand a why companies would love to sue researchers who produce unfavorable findings. It is obvious why such lawsuits cannot be allowed to go forward. All that same, I am not going to say that malicious publication of false data is not impossible, as the unfortunately sizable history of scientific fraud demonstrates. However, it seems to me that any lawsuits alleging such a fraud should have to be initiated by an independent entity such as the government instead of a company that may benefit from the success of the lawsuit, and that the plaintiff must meet such high standards of proof and of malicious intent on the part of the researcher such that only other potential fraudsters will have any reason to fear a lawsuit.
Some companies have few responsibilities. Money is their only goal. Governments should encourage researchers to disclose the products which are harmful. If the company recovers finally, it is really a bad news for all researchers and consumers.
Natanson`s expedient discovery act as an eye opener that scientific research mainly not mean money but for the benefit of the populace.