Lore of Nutrition: Challenging conventional dietary beliefs

by Tim Noakes

Dalby later fulminated about my ‘criminal’ behaviour, yet he did not mention that in 2009/10, five of the pharmaceutical companies for whom he works in an advisory capacity – Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly – were fined a total of $4.7 billion for various fraudulent (i.e. criminal) activities.82 I also wonder if Dalby ever informs patients who participate in the pharmaceutical trials he oversees that their data belongs solely to the company funding the trial, and that the company has the right to do pretty much whatever it likes with that information. Danish physician and author Dr Peter Gøtzsche believes that these trials are so lacking in transparency that an honest patient consent form should read: I agree to participate in this trial, which I understand has no scientific value but will be helpful for the company in marketing their drug. I also understand that if the results do not please the company, they may be manipulated and distorted until they do, and that if this also fails, the results may be buried for no one to see outside the company. Finally I understand and accept that should there be too many serious harms of the drugs, these will either not be published, or they will be called something else in order not to raise concerns in patients or lower sales of the company’s drugs.83