These expressions can then be used to support policies that one wishes to promote. Writer Joanne Jacobs found that her thyroid medication Synthroid, her doctor prescribed, cost twice as much as the generic brand. Her doctor might have benefited from a study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showing that the name brand was no more effective than the generic. The only problem was that the study's publication was delayed 6.5 years, when the manufacturer of Synthroid that sponsored the study blocked publication when results did not turn out as expected. The company tried to discredit the study, and questioned the ethics of the researcher.
Results show that drug studies are much more likely to be delayed when industry-funded.
An ethicist at U of Penn. said that a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found 98 percent of industry funded studies supported the drug of interest, while only 79 percent without acknowledged links favored the drug of interest. Recently, a controversy has erupted within communication circles over the Nazi background of Noelle-Neumann. She worked for the propaganda ministry during the Nazi era and wrote for one of the Nazi publications. She is currently one of the most widely known and influential social scientists in Germany and Europe, working closely with the conservative political parties. The purpose of reviewing this case is to show that the shaping of knowledge is not always as simple as suppressing results, or biasing survey questions.