Dear Dr. A:—The B Company of C has requested the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry to admit its preparation D to New and Nonofficial Remedies. As part evidence for the value of the preparation, the company submitted a letter from you which contains the following:
So far as my experience has thus far gone, they are certainly superior to a number of other iodine compounds now on the market, and I should judge that they ought to take a superior place in therapy involving the use of iodine.
The referee of the Council in charge of D writes that he was interested by your letter and asks that I inquire: As compared with sodium or potassium iodid, what would you say are the differences between, and real advantages of, D and the alkaline iodids? Did you make any comparative experiments and keep a record of them? If so, the referee would like to receive an account of your trials. In what direction could D be expected to occupy a superior place in iodin therapy?
I hope that you can give the information asked by the referee and thus aid the Council in arriving at a correct estimate regarding the value of D.
The following reply was received from the physician in response to the foregoing:
Dear Professor Puckner:—In reply to yours of January 19, I did not proceed far enough in the investigation of D to draw conclusions of any particular value for the purpose of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry; and I so stated in my letter to the proprietors of that remedy.
Answers to the questions you put in your letter require an amount of investigation of the remedy far beyond anything I undertook. As a matter of fact, I returned about five sixths of the capsules sent me, because of lack of time and opportunity to carry out the extensive clinical experiments that I plainly saw would be required to give an opinion at all worth while. I believe you had better not consider me in the matter at all.
The report was furnished by a physician for whom I have a high personal regard. I introduce it here, not so much in a spirit of criticism, but as a justification of the opinion that I have formed of clinical evidence obtained by manufacturers through their clinical adjutors.
When commercial firms claim to base their conclusions on clinical reports, the profession has a right to expect that these reports should be submitted to competent and independent review. When such reports are kept secret, it is impossible for any one to decide what proportion of them are trustworthy, and what proportion thoughtless, incompetent or accommodating. However, if this were done it is quite possible that such firms would find much more difficulty in obtaining the reports. Those who collaborate should realize frankly that under present conditions they are collaborating, not so much in determining the scientific value, but rather in establishing the commercial value of the article.