mfg
Note the following paragraph at the bottom of the story. Research done
by the pharma, with fill in the blanks with the 'researcher's' name.
MFG
" 'While most patients will probably be able to achieve target levels
for
LDL-C with a statin, treatments such as ezetimibe have a role in
helping
patients at risk, who are not reaching treatment targets with a statin
alone, get to goal.' said (name/title of medical expert)."
Times Colonist (Victoria),
Page A06, 01-Dec-2003
Drug companies get doctors to endorse tainted medical research
By Tom Spears
OTTAWA -- A British psychiatrist was doing research on possible
dangers of
antidepressant drugs when a representative of one drug manufacturer
came to
him with an offer of help.
You're a busy guy, the company rep said. Here's some background on our
product.
He e-mailed Dr. David Healy a finished 12-page review paper with
graphs and
footnotes, ready to present at an upcoming conference. And for
convenience,
Healy's name appeared as the sole author, even though the psychiatrist
had
never seen a single word of it before.
The drug company wanted its advertising to look like an independent
study --
a "massive" scientific fakery top medical journals condemn because it
prevents doctors from getting the straight facts on medicines they
prescribe.
Healy looked a gift horse in the mouth. Fearing the drug company was
too
easy on its own multi-million-dollar product, he did his own writing.
But the ghostwritten paper appeared verbatim at the conference and in
a
psychiatric journal anyway -- under another doctor's name.
Like a movie star who gets a chance to review his own films, the drug
industry is quietly paying "independent" doctors to sign their names
to work
they never did -- and keep their mouths shut.
Experts say this can undermine the treatment patients receive.
"That, of course, is unbelievably corrupt and horrible," says Dr.
Drummond
Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
"And you don't have to be any more than a small child to realize that
the
only reason the person is getting the money is to act as an ad for the
drug.
"What does it matter what the trials (drug experiments) say if a
review is
twisted to exclude the unfavourable ones and put a spin on the whole
lot?
All of which means that your doctor isn't able to know the best
treatment,
and so you're not going to get it.
"I watch the prescriber's hand pretty damn carefully -- not because I
think
my doctor's corrupt, but because the information he's got is twisted.
And
there's massive evidence for that," he said.
At York University in Toronto, Dr. Joel Lexchin says he recognizes the
Healy
story as a known method for drug makers to ensure they get the right
kind of
publicity in the scientific press.
"This is ghostwriting. This is something that's not all that uncommon
for
the drug companies," says the professor at York's School of Health
Policy
and Management, who is also an emergency physician at a Toronto
hospital.
Drug firms regularly write a review of their own product and go
shopping for
a doctor willing to claim this is his or her independent work, for a
fee of
several thousand dollars, he says.
"Sometimes it's pretty benign, but a lot of times it's just a way of
making
sure that a positive message about your drug gets out," he says.
Doctors who receive recruiting pitches from drug companies often
forward the
letters to Rennie's medical journal.
"I suppose I had about 20 at one time," said Rennie, who is also a
professor
of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"And of course, none of this would happen without the willing
collusion of
greedy doctors, clinical researchers. I'm talking about the people you
look
up to. The top of the profession."
What happens when a doctor is caught claiming to be the author of a
paper
written by someone else?
"They're embarrassed. I know, it's disgraceful. They should be fired,"
Rennie said. "They should be disgraced totally, but they aren't.
People just
think it's a bit naughty."
The British medical journal The Lancet asked in its lead editorial of
April
6, 2002: "Just how tainted has medicine become?"
"Heavily, and damagingly so, is the answer," according to the
editorial.
Them's fighting words, like seeing Sports Illustrated attack the
Olympics
and the Super Bowl. Yet The Lancet points to increasingly close links
between researchers and the companies whose products they study.
Today, medical journals demand all authors sign a document swearing
this
really is their own work.
"This is the kind of thing that largely relies on an honour system,"
Lexchin
says.
But even the honour system can fail. Early this year, the New England
Journal of Medicine retracted an article on a proposed new treatment
for
enlarged hearts it had published in 2002. Some of the paper's
"authors"
weren't authors at all, and said the real author had forged their
signatures
to the work.
"There was an egregious disregard of the principles of authorship,"
the
medical journal said in a statement.
It has since tightened its checks on who writes what.
The questionable tactics spill over into news releases. Here's one
issued
Oct. 27 by Cohn and Wolfe, a major Canadian public relations firm, on
behalf
of Canadian drug maker Merck Frosst/Schering Pharmaceuticals. The firm
forgot to proofread:
" 'While most patients will probably be able to achieve target levels
for
LDL-C with a statin, treatments such as ezetimibe have a role in
helping
patients at risk, who are not reaching treatment targets with a statin
alone, get to goal.' said (name/title of medical expert)."
In all, the release had two pre-written quotes ready for attribution
to a
doctor.
Meanwhile, Dr. David Healy has written a book called Let Them Eat
Prozac,
about ghostwriting and its effects in making Prozac, Paxil and related
antidepressants seem safer than he believes they are.
by the pharma, with fill in the blanks with the 'researcher's' name.
MFG
" 'While most patients will probably be able to achieve target levels
for
LDL-C with a statin, treatments such as ezetimibe have a role in
helping
patients at risk, who are not reaching treatment targets with a statin
alone, get to goal.' said (name/title of medical expert)."
Times Colonist (Victoria),
Page A06, 01-Dec-2003
Drug companies get doctors to endorse tainted medical research
By Tom Spears
OTTAWA -- A British psychiatrist was doing research on possible
dangers of
antidepressant drugs when a representative of one drug manufacturer
came to
him with an offer of help.
You're a busy guy, the company rep said. Here's some background on our
product.
He e-mailed Dr. David Healy a finished 12-page review paper with
graphs and
footnotes, ready to present at an upcoming conference. And for
convenience,
Healy's name appeared as the sole author, even though the psychiatrist
had
never seen a single word of it before.
The drug company wanted its advertising to look like an independent
study --
a "massive" scientific fakery top medical journals condemn because it
prevents doctors from getting the straight facts on medicines they
prescribe.
Healy looked a gift horse in the mouth. Fearing the drug company was
too
easy on its own multi-million-dollar product, he did his own writing.
But the ghostwritten paper appeared verbatim at the conference and in
a
psychiatric journal anyway -- under another doctor's name.
Like a movie star who gets a chance to review his own films, the drug
industry is quietly paying "independent" doctors to sign their names
to work
they never did -- and keep their mouths shut.
Experts say this can undermine the treatment patients receive.
"That, of course, is unbelievably corrupt and horrible," says Dr.
Drummond
Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical
Association.
"And you don't have to be any more than a small child to realize that
the
only reason the person is getting the money is to act as an ad for the
drug.
"What does it matter what the trials (drug experiments) say if a
review is
twisted to exclude the unfavourable ones and put a spin on the whole
lot?
All of which means that your doctor isn't able to know the best
treatment,
and so you're not going to get it.
"I watch the prescriber's hand pretty damn carefully -- not because I
think
my doctor's corrupt, but because the information he's got is twisted.
And
there's massive evidence for that," he said.
At York University in Toronto, Dr. Joel Lexchin says he recognizes the
Healy
story as a known method for drug makers to ensure they get the right
kind of
publicity in the scientific press.
"This is ghostwriting. This is something that's not all that uncommon
for
the drug companies," says the professor at York's School of Health
Policy
and Management, who is also an emergency physician at a Toronto
hospital.
Drug firms regularly write a review of their own product and go
shopping for
a doctor willing to claim this is his or her independent work, for a
fee of
several thousand dollars, he says.
"Sometimes it's pretty benign, but a lot of times it's just a way of
making
sure that a positive message about your drug gets out," he says.
Doctors who receive recruiting pitches from drug companies often
forward the
letters to Rennie's medical journal.
"I suppose I had about 20 at one time," said Rennie, who is also a
professor
of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.
"And of course, none of this would happen without the willing
collusion of
greedy doctors, clinical researchers. I'm talking about the people you
look
up to. The top of the profession."
What happens when a doctor is caught claiming to be the author of a
paper
written by someone else?
"They're embarrassed. I know, it's disgraceful. They should be fired,"
Rennie said. "They should be disgraced totally, but they aren't.
People just
think it's a bit naughty."
The British medical journal The Lancet asked in its lead editorial of
April
6, 2002: "Just how tainted has medicine become?"
"Heavily, and damagingly so, is the answer," according to the
editorial.
Them's fighting words, like seeing Sports Illustrated attack the
Olympics
and the Super Bowl. Yet The Lancet points to increasingly close links
between researchers and the companies whose products they study.
Today, medical journals demand all authors sign a document swearing
this
really is their own work.
"This is the kind of thing that largely relies on an honour system,"
Lexchin
says.
But even the honour system can fail. Early this year, the New England
Journal of Medicine retracted an article on a proposed new treatment
for
enlarged hearts it had published in 2002. Some of the paper's
"authors"
weren't authors at all, and said the real author had forged their
signatures
to the work.
"There was an egregious disregard of the principles of authorship,"
the
medical journal said in a statement.
It has since tightened its checks on who writes what.
The questionable tactics spill over into news releases. Here's one
issued
Oct. 27 by Cohn and Wolfe, a major Canadian public relations firm, on
behalf
of Canadian drug maker Merck Frosst/Schering Pharmaceuticals. The firm
forgot to proofread:
" 'While most patients will probably be able to achieve target levels
for
LDL-C with a statin, treatments such as ezetimibe have a role in
helping
patients at risk, who are not reaching treatment targets with a statin
alone, get to goal.' said (name/title of medical expert)."
In all, the release had two pre-written quotes ready for attribution
to a
doctor.
Meanwhile, Dr. David Healy has written a book called Let Them Eat
Prozac,
about ghostwriting and its effects in making Prozac, Paxil and related
antidepressants seem safer than he believes they are.
