Jon Jureidini

Leemon B. McHenry

An exposé of the corruption of medicine by the pharmaceutical industry at every level, from exploiting the vulnerable destitute for drug testing, through manipulation of research data, to disease mongering and promoting drugs that do more harm than good. Authors, Professor Jon Jureidini and Dr Leemon McHenry, made critical contributions to exposing the scientific misconduct in two infamous trials of antidepressants. Ghostwritten publications of these trials were highly influential in prescriptions of paroxetine (Paxil) and citalopram (Celexa) in paediatric and adolescent depression, yet both trials (Glaxo Smith Kline's paroxetine study 329 and Forest Laboratories' citalopram study CIT-MD-18) seriously misrepresented the efficacy and safety data. The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine provides a detailed account of these studies and argues that medicine desperately needs to re-evaluate its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. Without a basis for independent evaluation of the results of randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trials, there can be no confidence in evidence-based medicine. Science demands rigorous, critical examination and especially severe testing of hypotheses to function properly, but this is exactly what is lacking in academic medicine.

Exposing the Crisis of Credibility in Clinical Research

The Illusion of Evidence-Based Medicine

Leemon McHenry argues that Whitehead's metaphysics provides a better basis for achieving a unification of physical theory than a traditional substance metaphysics. He investigates the influence of Maxwell's electromagnetic field, Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on the development of the ontology of events and compares Whitehead's theory to his contemporaries, C. D. Broad and Bertrand Russell, as well as W. V. Quine. In this way, McHenry defends the naturalised and speculative approach to metaphysics as opposed to analytical and linguistic methods that arose in the 20th century.

The Revisionary Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead

Event Universe

In his magnum opus, Process and Reality, Alfred North Whitehead claims a special affinity to Oxford philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley. McHenry clarifies exactly how much of Whitehead's metaphysics is influenced by and accords with the main principles of Bradley's "absolute idealism." He argues that many of Whitehead's doctrines cannot be understood without an adequate understanding of Bradley, in terms of both affinities and contrasts. He evaluates the arguments between them and explores several important connections with William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, Bertrand Russell, and Charles Hartshorne.

Leemon B. McHenry

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