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.'"

Comments

Unsurprising to Me

[eldavojohn]

Just what we need, drug companies further muddling the waters so not even doctors can tell which treatments are useful or necessary. No wonder we see large movements away from things like vaccinations, which save lives. People are left with too many doubts and questions, fear doesn't lead to good decision making.

Do you think the operating system world is the only place where a war of words is fought by Microsoft to stay on top? Don't you see that this happens in every other field where dominant players refuse to fight fairly, refuse to let their products speak for themselves and refuse to innovate to stay alive? The market their product and they out market their competition. They're paying for ads in those medical journals, now they've found a new way to advertise.

Are you familiar with the third world being turned into a testing ground by companies like Pfizer where clinical trials aren't that important of a prerequisite? Their questionable ethics don't end there. Doping medical journals with fake studies to get your product to sell sell sell is nothing surprising. My older sister is a nurse and tells me that companies that sell medical supplies basically take the doctors out to get drunk and pay for them to go to conferences and boondoggles all so that the doctor recommends their product. Of course these multi-billion dollar companies are going to toe the line of ethics to keep their revenue source coming in.

And until someone steps up and really puts the hurt on those that get caught, everyone's going to keep doing it.

These people are marketers, they'll stop at nothing. Who cares about the dangers of Acetaminophen-Based Pain Killers, that's their revenue so they'll keep that on the market--Christ can we at least get a warning label not to mix them? The only place a code of ethics exists in big pharmaceuticals is in the bathroom stalls next to the diamond studded golden backscratchers where the CEO can whip their ass with it.