Secrecy, Obfuscation and Lies

I am in the middle of reading Ben Goldacre's "Bad Pharma" having previously read "Bad Science". The latter didn't surprise me and, perhaps not surprisingly, did not fill me with rage. The former has me seething. For the purposes of this post I'll not delve into the nastily unethical activities of the drug companies themselves - I just urge you to read Goldacre's book. Rather I just want to note that regulators and governments are deep in the mire, too. In some cases it's niaivity, granted, but in far too many regulators and governments appear to be in the pockets of the pharmacutical giants. And one of the ways this is manifested is by their connivance with big pharma in keeping the results of trials secret, in obfuscating the evidence, in approving worthless drugs and more.

What finally triggered me to put finger to keyboard was reading Nick Butler's latest blog post. Readers of this blog will have realised that I have some time for Butler and in his current post he comes with further evidence of a secrecy culture within Whitehall. In this case his target is DECC but the malaise is the same as one of those highlighted by Goldacre.

Butler starts off by noting a report in the Telegraph that claims that a study into the impact of windfarms across the UK is being suppressed by DECC. He then goes on to cite a stack of other energy related reports, working papers, assessments and studies that are not seeing the light of day.

As I have noted before, energy is the starting point of the nation's value chain and we should expect our politicians and civil servants to recognise that fact, to act in the country's best interests and to be accountable to all of us who depend upon their expertise and integrity. Instead we have a culture of silence which might cause one of a suspicious nature to suspect that politicians and civil servants are covering their embarrasment at the failure of policy, at their poor judgement and management, and, indeed, at their total ineptitude.

As for our drug regulators - just don't get ill.

Don't take my word for it - read Butler's blog - read Goldacre's book (and his Bad Science blog).