Pharma tricks - ghostwriters part 2
"If you are an editor, author, reviewer, or reader of medical journals, or if you depend on your doctor or health care provider getting unbiased information from medical journals, then the 1,500 documents now hosted on the PLoS Medicine Web site [1] should make you very concerned and angry. Because, quite simply, the story told in these documents amounts to one of the most compelling expositions ever seen of the systematic manipulation and abuse of scholarly publishing by the pharmaceutical industry and its commercial partners in their attempt to influence the health care decisions of physicians and the general public."
So starts an editorial, "Ghostwriting: The dirty little secret of medical publishing that just got bigger", in the September 2009 issue of PLoS Medicine (1). This is not the first time that PLoS editors and contributors have spoken out against this practice. What is different this time around is that a clear paper trail detailing these shenanigans surfaced in the course of litigation involving Wyeth and its HRT drug Prempro. Lawyers for PLoS Medicine and the New York Times were instrumental in getting these documents made public (2), and the New York Times ran a piece about this in their Aug 4, 2009 edition (3).
What is medical ghostwriting? The term refers to the Pharma practice of having writing firms produce manuscripts to the company′s specifications, paying "respected" academics to pose as authors, and getting these articles published in medical journals — without acknowledging the company′s involvement of course. As the PLoS Medicine editors put it:
"…articles highlighting specific marketing messages written by unattributed writers, but "authored" by academics, are strategically placed in the medical literature …" (2).
These ghostwritten articles are typically reviews favourable to drugs sold by the company commissioning the manuscript; benefits are exaggerated and side effects are minimized. However, even research papers and clinical trial results may be "authored" by ghostwriters. As cruder methods of persuasion lost their effectiveness, pharmaceutical companies turned to "educating" and influencing medical doctors by faking scholarly articles and submitting them to respectable academic publications.
"What, a cynical reader might ask, can I truly trust as being unbiased? The answer is that, sadly, for some or even many journal articles, we just don't know." (1)
The term "ghostwriting" is actually a bit misleading. It isn′t the writing firms that are the problem; it′s the academics posing as authors. Their names and reputations give credence to articles that are little more than ads masquerading as scholarly publications; the unsuspecting reader can′t tell the difference. Clearly, these "authors"and the pharmaceutical companies recruiting them are guilty of fraud.
"How did an industry whose products have contributed to astounding advances in global health over the past several decades come to accept such practices as the norm?" (1)
Well, judging by the recent scandals in the banking and financial sectors, corruption seems to be endemic in American business. Power tends to corrupt, Lord Acton said. Big Business is certainly powerful, and they are proving him right.
Sources:
So starts an editorial, "Ghostwriting: The dirty little secret of medical publishing that just got bigger", in the September 2009 issue of PLoS Medicine (1). This is not the first time that PLoS editors and contributors have spoken out against this practice. What is different this time around is that a clear paper trail detailing these shenanigans surfaced in the course of litigation involving Wyeth and its HRT drug Prempro. Lawyers for PLoS Medicine and the New York Times were instrumental in getting these documents made public (2), and the New York Times ran a piece about this in their Aug 4, 2009 edition (3).
What is medical ghostwriting? The term refers to the Pharma practice of having writing firms produce manuscripts to the company′s specifications, paying "respected" academics to pose as authors, and getting these articles published in medical journals — without acknowledging the company′s involvement of course. As the PLoS Medicine editors put it:
"…articles highlighting specific marketing messages written by unattributed writers, but "authored" by academics, are strategically placed in the medical literature …" (2).
These ghostwritten articles are typically reviews favourable to drugs sold by the company commissioning the manuscript; benefits are exaggerated and side effects are minimized. However, even research papers and clinical trial results may be "authored" by ghostwriters. As cruder methods of persuasion lost their effectiveness, pharmaceutical companies turned to "educating" and influencing medical doctors by faking scholarly articles and submitting them to respectable academic publications.
"What, a cynical reader might ask, can I truly trust as being unbiased? The answer is that, sadly, for some or even many journal articles, we just don't know." (1)
The term "ghostwriting" is actually a bit misleading. It isn′t the writing firms that are the problem; it′s the academics posing as authors. Their names and reputations give credence to articles that are little more than ads masquerading as scholarly publications; the unsuspecting reader can′t tell the difference. Clearly, these "authors"and the pharmaceutical companies recruiting them are guilty of fraud.
"How did an industry whose products have contributed to astounding advances in global health over the past several decades come to accept such practices as the norm?" (1)
Well, judging by the recent scandals in the banking and financial sectors, corruption seems to be endemic in American business. Power tends to corrupt, Lord Acton said. Big Business is certainly powerful, and they are proving him right.
Sources:
- The PLoS Medicine Editors. Ghostwriting: The dirty little secret of medical publishing that just got bigger. PLoS Medicine 2009;6(9):e1000156.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000156 - Wyeth ghostwriting archive. PLoS Medicine.
http://www.plosmedicine.org/static/ghostwriting.action - Natasha Singer. Medical papers by ghostwriters pushed therapy. NY Times Aug 4, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/health/research/05ghost.html
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