Patients' organisations and pharmaceutical industry

"VHOs should recognise that pharmaceutical companies have to be profitable, and have their own particular marketing agenda, to which no VHO should ever feel obliged to conform. Funding should be rejected if the alternative is compromising the VHO's independence in any way." (Herxheimer in: BMJ 31 May 2003).
"Meanwhile regulatory agencies have to distinguish between independent and extensively funded patient groups, and they must realise that many groups have a tiny base and cannot be representative." (Herxheimer, loc. cit.)