When The Media Says "Experts" They Mean Paid Corporate Shills (Part 37)
Between 2020 and 2022, 59% of peer reviewers for four major medical journals (n = 1,962) received $1 billion in Pharma industry payments to individuals and their institutions which included over $64 million in general payments to 54% of peer reviewers, over $34 million in consulting fees and almost $12 million in speaking fees unrelated to CME programs. The median research payment to peer reviewers and/or their institution was $153,173 while the median general payment was $7,614 with male reviewers receiving twice as much as female reviewers. The journals in question are the standard bearers of peer reviewed evidence including the British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine. While study authors are typically required to disclose conflicts of interest with industry in their publications, few journals require peer reviewers to do the same. As I mentioned in (Part 8) Pharma is also the largest publisher and buyer of Medical Journals. Unsurprisingly, at least one of the authors who conducted this review had financial ties to industry themselves.