How Big Pharma Dupes Medical Journals - Pharmaceutical Giants Hire Ghostwriters To Produce Articles - Then Put (well paid) Doctors' Names On Them

[Guest guest]

THOSE IN THE CORRUPTION RIDDEN EU DECISION MAKING FOR OUR HEALTH ARE BRAKING THE

BACK OF THE WRONG MONSTER WITH THE CODEX.

 

But, really, as if they didn't know !!!! Who can believe that?

 

It's like Aspartame, the Health Commisionner is relying on a medical panel

headed by a pharma company executive to systematically allow it's use in any and

all " food " products. But yet, natural and herbal products or remedies, with no

aspartame in them of course, sometimes used for longer than we know are under

attack.

 

It becomes clearer by the day the EU Health Commision has the agenda to keep us

all unhealthy to fill the right pockets!

 

Disgusting is the word!

 

Fransy

 

Here is just a small text in French in between.

 

-

Derek White

Dutch

Sunday, December 07, 2003 12:59 PM

How Big Pharma Dupes Medical Journals Pharmaceutical Giants Hire

Ghostwriters To Produce Articles - Then Put Doctors' Names On Them

 

 

 

A montrer à tous ses amis médecins. C'est une chose que je sais

depuis longtemps et qui mine ma confiance dans le corps

médical. Ce n'est pas que je considère les médecins comme

des fumistes, ni que tous les médicaments sont de la m... Simplement,

les médecins sont mal renseignés. Cet article révèle l'étendue du

phénomène. Les médecins qui ne s'en doutent pas peuvent continuer

à pontifier avec confiance et sans état d'âme. Les autres savent

qu'ils en sont réduits au tâtonnement, à l'égal de nous autres profanes,

et ils en souffrent. Mais ils ont l'avantage potentiel d'avoir un champ

de tâtonnement plus ouvert que celui de leurs collègues confiants.

 

Derek

 

 

http://www.rense.com/general45/dupe.htm

 

 

 

Rense.com

 

 

 

 

How Big Pharma Dupes

Medical Journals

Pharmaceutical Giants Hire Ghostwriters To Produce

Articles - Then Put Doctors' Names On Them

By Antony Barnett

Public Affairs Editor

The Observer - UK

12-7-3

 

Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by

academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug

companies, an Observer inquiry reveals.

The journals, bibles of the profession, have huge influence on which

drugs doctors prescribe and the treatment hospitals provide. But The Observer

has uncovered evidence that many articles written by so-called independent

academics may have been penned by writers working for agencies which receive

huge sums from drug companies to plug their products.

Estimates suggest that almost half of all articles published in

journals are by ghostwriters. While doctors who have put their names to the

papers can be paid handsomely for 'lending' their reputations, the ghostwriters

remain hidden. They, and the involvement of the pharmaceutical firms, are rarely

revealed.

These papers endorsing certain drugs are paraded in front of GPs as

independent research to persuade them to prescribe the drugs.

In February the New England Journal of Medicine was forced to retract

an article published last year by doctors from Imperial College in London and

the National Heart Institute on treating a type of heart problem. It emerged

that several of the listed authors had little or nothing to do with the

research. The deception was revealed only when German cardiologist Dr Hubert

Seggewiss, one of the eight listed authors, called the editor of the journal to

say he had never seen any version of the paper.

An article published last February in the Journal of Alimentary

Pharmacology , which specialises in stomach disorders, involved a medical writer

working for drug giant AstraZeneca - a fact that was not revealed by the author.

The article, by a German doctor, acknowledged the 'contribution' of Dr

Madeline Frame, but did not admit that she was a senior medical writer for

AstraZeneca. The article essentially supported the use of a drug called

Omeprazole - which is manufactured by AstraZeneca - for gastric ulcers, despite

suggestions that it gave rise to more adverse reactions than similar drugs.

Few within the industry are brave enough to break cover. However,

Susanna Rees, an editorial assistant with a medical writing agency until 2002,

was so concerned about what she witnessed that she posted a letter on the

British Medical Journal website.

'Medical writing agencies go to great lengths to disguise the fact

that the papers they ghostwrite and submit to journals and conferences are

ghostwritten on behalf of pharmaceutical companies and not by the named

authors,' she wrote. 'There is a relatively high success rate for ghostwritten

submissions - not outstanding, but consistent.'

Rees said part of her job had been to ensure that any article that was

submitted electronically would give no clues as to the origin of the research.

'One standard procedure I have used states that before a paper is

submitted to a journal electronically or on disc, the editorial assistant must

open the file properties of the Word document manuscript and remove the names of

the medical writing agency or agency ghostwriter or pharmaceutical company and

replace these with the name and institution of the person who has been invited

by the pharmaceutical drug company (or the agency acting on its behalf) to be

named as lead author, but who may have had no actual input into the paper,' she

wrote.

When contacted, Rees declined to give any details. 'I signed a

confidentiality agreement and am unable to comment,' she said.

A medical writer who has worked for a number of agencies did not want

to be identified for fear he would not get any work again.

'It is true that sometimes a drug company will pay a medical writer to

write a review article supporting a particular drug,' he said. 'This will mean

using all published information to write an article explaining the benefits of a

particular treatment.

'A recognised doctor will then be found to put his or her name to it

and it will be submitted to a journal without anybody knowing that a ghostwriter

or a drug company is behind it. I agree this is probably unethical, but all the

firms are at it.'

One field where ghostwriting is becoming an increasing problem is

psychiatry.

Dr David Healy, of the University of Wales, was doing research on the

possible dangers of anti-depressants, when a drug manufacturer's representative

emailed him with an offer of help.

The email, seen by The Observer, said: 'In order to reduce your

workload to a minimum, we have had our ghostwriter produce a first draft based

on your published work. I attach it here.'

The article was a 12-page review paper ready to be presented at an

forthcoming conference. Healy's name appeared as the sole author, even though he

had never seen a single word of it before. But he was unhappy with the glowing

review of the drug in question, so he suggested some changes.

The company replied, saying he had missed some 'commercially

important' points. In the end, the ghostwritten paper appeared at the conference

and in a psychiatric journal in its original form - under another doctor's name.

Healy says such deception is becoming more frequent. 'I believe 50 per

cent of articles on drugs in the major medical journals are not written in a way

that the average person would expect them to be... the evidence I have seen

would suggest there are grounds to think a significant proportion of the

articles in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the British

Medical Journal and the Lancet may be written with help from medical writing

agencies,' he said. 'They are no more than infomercials paid for by drug firms.'

In the United States a legal case brought against drug firm Pfizer

turned up internal company documents showing that it employed a New York medical

writing agency. One document analyses articles about the anti-depressant Zoloft.

Some of the articles lacked only one thing: a doctor's name. In the margin the

agency had put the initials TBD, which Healy assumes means 'to be determined'.

Dr Richard Smith, editor of the British Journal of Medicine, admitted

ghostwriting was a 'very big problem' .

'We are being hoodwinked by the drug companies. The articles come in

with doctors' names on them and we often find some of them have little or no

idea about what they have written,' he said.

'When we find out, we reject the paper, but it is very difficult. In a

sense, we have brought it on ourselves by insisting that any involvement by a

drug company should be made explicit. They have just found ways to get round

this and go undercover.'

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1101706,00.html

 

 

 

 

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