We’ve talked in the past of the importance of using independent researchers in the study of our products, like EMPowerplus. Yet despite our not funding the research, not dictating how researchers conduct their trials, and in every way try to keep an arm’s length from the research, people still claim, to discredit it, that we influence the research on our products.
Mental health researchers, Dr. Bonnie Kaplan and Dr. Julia Rucklidge—both of whom have headed up research on our products—recently wrote about this very issue.
But no matter how often we report that we have no conflict of interest, we are falsely accused of being affiliated with one of the Alberta companies that developed the . . . formulas for mental health, or of promoting their products. We have both had to endure various accusations, and even our universities being asked to provide evidence that we do not have any conflicts of interest. In all cases we have been exonerated of all accusations. In other words, we report we have no conflict of interest, and our readers and listeners call us liars.
They discuss how the practices of drug companies influencing research in the past may be a factor in people assuming Truehope influences research on our products. Some of the practices they highlight are:
- Educating physicians about medications
- Providing free food at medical rounds to entice more medical attendees
- Offering clinicians free trips to the Bahamas to hear a lecture on a new psychiatric medication
- Offer money to scientists to be listed as authors on papers they did not write about clinical trials that they did not conduct
They also reference a book called Psychiatry Under the Influence (written by two ethics researchers) that indicates that physicians typically receive drug information directly from the pharmaceutical companies who produce the drugs, and not, say, a third-party independent source like medical school or research conferences.
They finish off their article with the catch-22 situation of trying to avoid giving the impression that nutrient formulas are the same without making it seem like they are in the pockets of the producers of those formulas:
We live in a funny world, where it is okay to mention drug names . . ., and even names of psychotherapeutic methods . . ., but as soon as you start to talk about nutrition, people become uncomfortable with using product names. Yet if we researchers do not specify the names of the formulas we study, then people may conclude that all formulas are similar. The formulas are not all the same, and readers need to know what is scientifically supported.
We’ll leave you, dear reader, with this quote from their article:
Bonnie once approached a very well-known NHP company with the suggestion that she do a study of one of their formulas that she had heard was helpful for stress and anxiety. She was rebuffed by the director of their scientific division who said (and this truly is a direct quote): “Why would we want to study it? We are making money.”