Naming names: is there an (unbiased) doctor in the house?

I was absolutely fascinated to read of the work by Lenzer and
Brownlee and its self-made declaration of how to get into the list (which
I am certain will become one more must have in anyone’s curriculum).
The declaration is however, a one-way street. It implies
that only those who have had or still have some kind of relation with
pharma are biased. That may be so. But how about those who work in
government (who make decisions and audit them), academics and
professionals whose sole business is research and those who make a living
out dissemination of health stories, such as journalists and most of all
the scientific media?

Tom Jefferson

Cochrane Vaccines Field
Rome,
Italy

Jefferson.tom@gmail.com

Competing interests:
I had my last direct contact with a pharma company some 5.5 years ago, however I now work for government, so I am riven by conflicts of all kinds, most of them too boring to recount here. My only other conflict is my revulsion towards data-free witch hunts.