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The pressure of big Pharma, not just by their advertisements, but because they fund the studies that get published in journals, was pointed out by former editor of the NEJM, Dr. Marcia Angell, twenty years ago: 

italics mine.

Book review here.

For two decades the drug industry was the most profitable sector; even in 2003 it came third, behind crude oil and banking. But now, Angell says, it is facing “a tidal wave of government investigations and civil and criminal lawsuits.”

She writes, “The litany of charges includes Illegally overcharging Medicaid and Medicare, paying kickbacks to doctors, engaging in anticompetitive practices, colluding with generic companies to keep generic drugs off the market, illegally promoting drugs for unapproved uses, engaging in misleading direct-to-consumer advertising, and, of course, covering up evidence. Some of the settlements have been huge.”

that was 20 years ago. 

Place conspiracy theory here.