Ghosts Selling Drugs

by Sheldon Rampton — August 5, 2009 - 1:42pm
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"Newly unveiled court documents show that ghostwriters paid by a pharmaceutical company played a major role in producing 26 scientific papers backing the use of hormone replacement therapy in women," reports Natasha Singer. "The articles, published in medical journals between 1998 and 2005, emphasized the benefits and de-emphasized the risks" of Premarin and Prempro, two homone drugs produced by the Wyeth pharmaceutical company. The articles, which were ghostwritten for Wyeth by the DesignWrite medical communications firm, created an illusion of consensus in favor of hormone replacement therapy until a large federal study discovered that the drugs created "increased risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease and stroke." Court documents suggest that the practice of ghostwriting articles for medical journals without disclosing their corporate sponsors "went well beyond the case of Wyeth and hormone therapy, involving numerous drugs from other pharmaceutical companies."

Main Source: 
New York Times, August 4, 2009

Comments

Oh, I've already read this

Submitted by Jane Addams (not verified) on November 4, 2010 - 4:01am.

Oh, I've already read this one.. But well, thank you for sharing!.. Interesting website, i have bookmarked your site for future reference.
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glad they were busted! Even

Submitted by O'malley (not verified) on February 17, 2010 - 3:01pm.

glad they were busted! Even wikipedia has a good entry on medical ghostwriting, which is disturbing in and of itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_ghostwriter
here is a not-so-fun fact: "A 2009 NY Times article estimated that 11% of New England Journal of Medicine articles, 8% of JAMA, Lancet and PLoS Medicine articles, 5% of Annals of Internal Medicine articles and 2% of Nature Medicine were ghost written"
How is this even possible with journals of such reputation? Thats like buying masters golf tickets to watch Caddyshack! (almost that funny). What would be an effective canopy to protect scientific journals from this form of corporate penetration?

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals

Submitted by Holy Hormones! (not verified) on August 13, 2009 - 1:38pm.

I grind my teeth every time I hear Wyeth's name come up , and I am thrilled they have been outed on this Premarin issue. I take bioidentical hormones (I wouldn't put that synthetic garbage in my body on a bet) and Wyeth has spent literally millions of dollars trying to get BHRT and compounding pharmacies shut down. I hope this story puts a handful of nail's in Wyeth's coffin, and that the medical community wakes up to the efficacy and safety of BHRT. I have a blog dedicated to bioidentical hormone replacement therapy at holyhormones.blogspot.com. Besst wishes to all for (bioidentical) hormonal health!

Ghost busted

Submitted by stephane mot on August 12, 2009 - 2:37am.

ghost writers promoting breast cancer ? It was definitely high time to call ghostbusters.

The obligation of disclosing corporate sponsors is one thing, but it would be also interesting to have all authors sign a statement confirming the fact that they have no link nor interest.

They would be legally binded, and could be prosecuted as accomplices in a lawsuit against the drug companies.

On the other hand, I'm not sure publications are ready for this kind of transparency.

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Stephane MOT -
blogules and other Weapons of Mass Disinformation

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