Ghostwriting for medical papers/journals for the sake of M-O-N-E-Y

[Guest guest]

This is something that is quite disturbing..but we all know occurs.

Message from a friend.

PLoS Medicine, the leading non-commercial medical journal, just published

a highly significant article that shows that Big Pharma companies actually

ghostwrite many articles that promote their drugs...and pay big money to

ghostwriters and to " thought leaders " medicine who pretend to be the authors.

Will the media expose this fraud?

_http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000335\

_

(http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000335)

Summary Points

* Some 1500 documents revealed in litigation provide unprecedented

insights into how pharmaceutical companies promote drugs, including the use of

vendors to produce ghostwritten manuscripts and place them into medical

journals.

* Dozens of ghostwritten reviews and commentaries published in medical

journals and supplements were used to promote unproven benefits and

downplay harms of menopausal hormone therapy (HT), and to cast raloxifene and

other competing therapies in a negative light.

* Specifically, the pharmaceutical company Wyeth used ghostwritten

articles to mitigate the perceived risks of breast cancer associated with HT,

to defend the unsupported cardiovascular “benefits†of HT, and to promote

off-label, unproven uses of HT such as the prevention of dementia,

Parkinson's disease, vision problems, and wrinkles.

* Given the growing evidence that ghostwriting has been used to

promote HT and other highly promoted drugs, the medical profession must take

steps to ensure that prescribers renounce participation in ghostwriting, and to

ensure that unscrupulous relationships between industry and academia are

avoided rather than courted.