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Medical Papers By Ghostwriters Pushed Hormone Therapy
krou writes "The New York Times reports on newly released court documents that show how pharmaceutical company Wyeth paid a medical communications firm to use ghost writers in drafting and publishing 26 papers between 1998 and 2005 backing the usage of hormone replacement therapy in women. The articles appeared in 18 journals, such as The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and The International Journal of Cardiology. The papers 'emphasized the benefits and de-emphasized the risks of taking hormones to protect against maladies like aging skin, heart disease and dementia,' and the apparent 'medical consensus benefited Wyeth ... as sales of its hormone drugs, called Premarin and Prempro, soared to nearly $2 billion in 2001.' The apparent consensus crumbled after a federal study in 2002 'found that menopausal women who took certain hormones had an increased risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease and stroke.'"
On April 29, 2008, environmental journalist Richard Littlemore revealed that a list of "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares"[26] distributed by the Heartland Institute included at least 45 scientists who neither knew of their inclusion as "coauthors" of the article, nor agreed with its contents.[27] Many of the scientists asked the Heartland Institute to remove their names from the list.
From here.
Here are few links:
Philadelphia Inquirer,
UPI (Two quotes: "Ghostwriters paid by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Wyeth worked on dozens of articles published in medical journals under doctors' names, court documents indicate." and "A Wyeth spokesman said the ghostwritten articles were scientifically sound and subject to peer review by the journals that published them.")
NYT
A peer reviewed journal doesn't tell you that the article has real unfalsified results. The job of the journal is to see if the methodology is serious. So, if you fake your results and have a very well thought out methodology, you can be published. The burden of double checking the results is given to the readers, other scientists who would like to disprove the claims. That costs money and time so most people don't do it. They prefer to publish new discoveries instead.
It's not that the notepads and pens they handed out to doctors cost too much, it's that the trade group representing drug companies voluntarily agreed to stop the practice.
And not only has ghostwriting been around forever, but the drug companies have long hired well-respected doctors as consultants (at high rates), or paid for them to give lectures (again, at high rates). These well-respected doctors (called 'Key Opinion Leaders') have considerable influence within their specialty.
Disclosure: I arrange for doctors to work as consultants for drug companies.
Some the the journals are published by Elsevier, which cropped up here last May for publishing entire bogus journals!
Last time they pimped for Merck, now Wyeth. If anyone needs to be punished, it's Elsevier.
From one doc to another, stop using atenolol. :-) Atenolol is not a particularly good beta blocker. It's advertised as a QD drug, but really should be given BID. In addition, it is renally cleared.
I can't count the number of times the following happened: Patient's renal clearance decreases transiently for some reason. The atenolol buildy up in the system and causes hypotension and bradycardia, causing a further drop in renal clearance. And the cycle continues until the patient ends up in the ER in complete heart block and renal failure or dead.
Use metoprolol ER (generic equivalent to toprol xl) or carvedilol. Both generic and with proven cardioprotective effects.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.