Follow the money - who is funding the US transborg?

Yes the difference in quality between the Cassie brighter piece and this is fairly substantial eh?

Evergreening is how you extend the patent on a drug. So a drug from the point of discovery only has a set patent life. 15 years normally although there are exceptions. Now if it takes you five years to get that drug through tests and a billion dollars to do it (roughly the industry norm) you have ten years of patent to exploit to get your money back.
Evergreening is making subtle changes to the formulation/dosing/release etc to extend the patent and give you more money making time. If you repackage a depot injection as a different format for example and remarked for something else you potentially (not always) extend patent life.

Ghostwriting is the practice of pharma companies writing what look like genuine primary research papers by academics in order to build up a body of ‘research’ that ‘confirms’ the drug is fabulous/effective etc.
It’s not always a bad thing or done maliciously - there are plenty of papers out there where very important work has been done in conjunction with companies and as long as all interests are declared and it’s obvious who has paid for it and what people’s intetests are it’s less problematic. What is a problem is where pharma writers write the piece and cover it with other names, so it looks like Dr. So and so writes as if he has confirmed that the drug is doing something and actually... it’s advertising.

This is something that really pisses me off because people have all these conspiracies about Big Pharma sitting on cancer cures (they aren’t, honest) and ignore these grubbier but real ways in which some companies flout ethics.

Ah - apologies - previous thread on the Federalist article: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3173651-Article-on-the-funding-behind-transgender-lobbying-organisations

From about six months ago, so a really interesting to read as to what was known then and what's come out since.

Thankfully we aren't the only ones following the money.

This is a fantastic read: thefederalist.com/2018/02/20/rich-white-men-institutionalizing-transgender-ideology/ The pharma and tech section is pretty chilling.

The Pritzker family spend their money on some interesting things:

4thwavenow.com/2016/07/11/follow-the-money-trans-billionaire-makes-new-1-million-grant-to-chicago-pediatric-transition-clinic/

www.insidephilanthropy.com/lgbt/2016/1/20/which-chicago-billionaire-is-giving-big-for-transgender-stud.html

Is Goldacre keeping quiet on this subject?

By the way if you’re interested in dodgy pharmaceutical tactics, Ben Goldacre’s book ‘bad pharma’ is a fantastic startpoint.

His ‘bad science’ book is great too.

I still feel there’s something deeper behind all this. The ideology is so extreme, and the effect on women and children sonpotentially extreme.

It’s a very good read.

I can’t comment much on the financial section because that’s not my area, but the medical section later on is extremely worrying. Ghostwriting, off label promotion and evergreening are obviously happening here. The echo chamber web of self promotion and dodgy data is something I’ve suspected from reading a lot of the papers that have been published recently - it’s good to see her actually start to dissect that network.

Really good article and very worrying indeed.

It is long - it is interesting from what I gleaned.

Astroturf is artificial grassroots support.

That's a long read.... very interesting but will take a while to get through. It's complicated.

I've read the beginning and end and skimmed the bit in the middle. Fascinating. The argument is that in the US, organisations posing as grassroots transgender rights movements are actually lobby groups funded by wealthy organisations and foundations.

One key para near the end:

"Let us think about it: what every group in the transgender lobby is demanding is essentially guaranteed access to medication for off-label purposes. None of these drugs are approved for transgender uses. Given the data we do have and the state of the science behind that data, accompanied by the side effects up to and including death, it is unlikely to ever be approved by the FDA in a clinical trial. Unless, of course, the side effects were better than the outcome. Hence, the creation of a perception that transgender people are murdered a at higher rates than the general population, even though that isn’t true. Saying that the side effects are better than the suicide of the patient probably wouldn’t pass muster either, given that medical intervention did not change the fact that transgender people have elevated suicide rates compared to the general population."