Best of the Web
- Senate Panel to Investigate Deaths in Long-Term Care - NYTimes.com (3/9/10)
- States See Flaw in Obama Plan for Health Insurance Premiums - NYTimes.com (3/9/10)
- Alison Bass - Financial Conflicts and Other Problems with the Proposed DSM-V (3/8/10)
- Varmus Dispels Cancer Institute Rumor - ScienceInsider (3/8/10)
- What, You Have A Better Idea For Cost Control? - Jon Cohn in The New Republic (3/8/10)
- Holt (NJ12) - Press Release - Holt Calls For Congressional Investigation Into FBI Handling of Anthrax Attacks (3/3/10)
- Ezra Klein - The true cost of the health-care bill, cont'd: An interview with Rep. Paul Ryan (3/4/10)
- Russian Cold Medication for Alzheimers Falls Short for Pfizer - WSJ.com (3/4/10)
- Concerns Over ‘Metal on Metal’ Hip Implants - NYTimes.com (3/4/10)
- Allowing Americans to opt out of mandated insurance could save health care reform. - Paul Starr op-ed in NYTimes.com (3/4/10)
Recent Articles
Where's Harvard's Missing Health Policy Journal?
The Pharmagossip website has an intriguing item up today regarding a journal published by the Harvard Interfaculty Initiative in Health Policy, chaired by prominent health economist Joseph Newhouse. The Spring 2008 issue of Harvard Health Policy Review, which sources say is a student-run publication, is missing. Try clicking on the Initiative's website (here) and see for yourself.
The Harvard Health Policy Review clearly isn't a prestigious publication. It isn't indexed on PubMed. But it does attract prominent left-of-center academics to write for it, including, in the spring issue, Harvard's Richard Freeman on "Global Health and the Problem of Governance" and Johns Hopkins' Vincent Navarro on "The Politics of Healthcare Reforms in U.S. Presidential Elections."
But, according to Pharmagossip, the glitch in the weblink may have more to do with an article by University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey sociologist Donald Light and University of Victoria economist Rebecca N. Warburton entitled "Ethical Standards for Healthcare Journal Editors: A Case Report and Recommendations." The article (which you can read as it appeared in the hard copy of the journal here) dissects the distasteful editing process that Light and Warburton had to go through at the hands of the editors of the high impact Journal of Health Economics before they could publish their critical analysis (subscription required) of the famous (or some would say infamous) Tufts study that claims it costs over $800 million to develop a new drug. That study (which, ahem, I also disemboweled in a book still available from the University of California Press) was also published in the Journal of Health Economics, which is co-edited by -- surprise! -- Joseph Newhouse.
Pharmagossip asks: Can anyone out there shed some light on this missing article? But when I clicked on the journal, the entire edition (Spring 2008, Vol. 9, No. 1) was missing. So I will amend the query: Can anyone out there shed some light on this missing journal?
- gooznews's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Comments
- marrymatin commented on 'No Benefit for Mr. Obama Himself'
- norbertherrera commented on Half a Loaf on Misnamed Cadillac Tax; Middle Class Still Hit
- Wyna commented on 'Acute Cost Bubble' from Reform's Medicaid Expansion
- rupesh777 commented on Unintended Consequences
- AnnieAppleseed commented on The Mandate Opt-Out Safety Valve
Comments
Come on, Merrill. I know that you are wont to hump your book at the drop of a hat, but let's be accurate about it. Despite the title of the book, it has extraordinarily little to do with our R&D cost study, and the passages in it that deal with it are actually quite mild (unlike what you have said here and in other venues).
By the way, also in the interest of accuracy, neither Light nor Warburton are Princeton faculty members, and Warburton is not a sociologist. You have made that association with Light before, but his home base is actually New Jersey's state medical school. It's not that important, but I thought that I should correct the record anyway.
I've corrected the university affiliations of Drs. Light and Warburton above. Thanks for correcting me. As for my book, why pass up an opportunity for self-promotion? But Dr. Dimasi is right. I spent only one chapter debunking his thesis. And after four more years thinking about this subject, and in the midst of a shocking collapse of pharmaceutical innovation, I now think the whole "how much it costs to develop a new drug" argument is a red herring, which I discussed in depth in "The Pharmaceutical Innovation Conundrum" last December -- see this blog post: http://www.gooznews.com/archives/000906.html.