Patient groups are industry mouthpieces, academics say

Patient advocacy groups need to stop accepting industry funding if they want to have any credibility and be free of bias, say Australian academics.

Disease- and patient-focused interest groups in Australia accept more than $9 million funding a year from the pharmaceutical industry, and this makes them push the industry profit-driven agenda rather than representing patients’ interests, according to public health researchers Dr Ray Moynihan (PhD) and Dr Lisa Bero (PhD) of the University of Sydney.

Writing in JAMA Internal Medicine, they say patient advocacy groups help