Influence of conflicts of interest on public positions in the COVID-19 era, the case of Gilead Sciences

Abstract

Funding and gifts from the pharmaceutical industry have an influence on the decisions made by physicians and medical experts. In the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic, several treatments are available to treat patients infected with the virus. Some are protected by patents, such as remdesivir, others0020stare not, such as hydroxychloroquine. We wanted to observe the possible correlation between the fact, for an academic doctor in infectious diseases, of having benefited from funding by Gilead Sciences, producer of remdesivir, and the public positions taken by this doctor towards hydroxychloroquine. Our results show a correlation (Spearman test, p = 0.017) between the amount received from the Gilead Sciences company and public opposition to the use of hydroxychloroquine in France. This should open up the debate on the role of the interest links of doctors with pharmaceutical companies in the medical and scientific public debate.

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The Economic, Climate Change and Public Health Edges of the Geopolitics of COVID-19: An Exploratory Bibliometric Analysis

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The Covid-19 caesura and the post-pandemic future

“…Yazdanpanah's links with Gilead Sciences-the pharmaceutical giant behind one of the potential treatments for Covid-19 (Remdesivir) that turned out to be a fiasco-are numerous (Mucchielli, 2020). But Yazdanpanah is not the only one with such disconcerting conflicts of interests in a position of power (Roussel and Raoult, 2020) that may have misled the European Commission into wasting €1bn on such a useless yet expensive drug (Mancini et al, 2020).…”