For years we have disseminated reports documenting one after another uncovered case of corruption demonstrating that so-called "peer review" is a sham: clinical trials, journal publications, and the practice of medicine have been corrupted by the commercial influence of pharmaceutical companies.

Today’s New York Times reports (below) that "court documents provide a paper trail showing that Wyeth contracted with a medical communications company to outline articles, draft them and then solicit top physicians to sign their names, even though many of the doctors contributed little or no writing."

It is a sordid example of corruption in medicine, but hardly unique. In this case, 26 ghostwritten articles signed by prominent academic Obg/ Gyn physicians, were published in 18 journals, promoting Wyeth’s hormone replacement therapy, Premarin–a treatment that has been linked to increased breast cancer, stoke, and dementia.

The issue of ghostwritten promotional articles, signed by prominent academic scientists at prestigious medical centers, is not a newly discovered form of corruption. It was raised as early as 1998 (Carey, Fontarosa, et al) [1].

Last year, an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed that Merck commissioned ghostwriters to produce dozens of articles pushing Vioxx, a drug that caused thousnads of cardiac deaths. And this year, documents uncovered in an Australian court showed that Merck even commissioned a fake journal published by Elsevier: “The drug company also allegedly produced an entire journal — called The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine — and passed it off as an independent peer review publication.” http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/print/55671/

Eli Lilly paid ghostwriters to push Zyprexa; and Pfizer-funded ghostwriters generated 85 articles about Zoloft in the late 1990s, according to the British Journal of Psychiatry. [2]

Yet, no meaningful disciplinary action has been taken against anyone: academics continue to append their name to ghostwritten articles for cash; journals taken no steps to cleanse the medical-scientific literature of ghostwritten, hence, fraudulent articles; nor have steps even been taken to bring transparency to "peer review."

Our view that this is an endemic problem linked to industry’s influence on medicine, is corroborated by a spokesman for Wyeth who acknowledged that "pharmaceutical companies routinely hired medical writing companies to assist authors in drafting manuscripts." When a High School student pens his name to an article written by someone else, it’s called cheating, earning the student an F grade and precluding entry into a reputable college.

Shouldn’t we expect medical professionals at major academic institutions to, at the very least, adhere to academic standards required of High School students?

Dr. Daniel Carlat suggests that the proper collective response from all of the participants in fraud should have been:

"We sincerely apologize for having deceived the medical community by engaging in ghostwriting without disclosure. We have contributed to the erosion of the public’s trust in medicine, and we regret it."

But then, aganin, the participants in fraud have no shame–they only value cash!

References:

1. Flanagin A, Carey LA, Fontanarosa PB, Phillips SG, Pace BP, et al. (1998) Prevalence of articles with honorary authors and ghost authors in peer-reviewed medical journals. JAMA 280: 222–224.

2. Healy D, Cattell D (2003) Interface between authorship, industry and science in the domain of therapeutics. Br J Psychiatry 183: 22–27.

Posted by Vera Sharav



