Busted: Wyeth Used Ghostwriters To Place Over 40 "Scientific" Articles In Medical Journals

The Author Points Out:

The Prempro case is not Wyeth's first ghostwriting scandal; the company was previously forced to pay $21 billion in lawsuits over the diet drug fen-phen, which was also marketed using ghostwriters. Indeed, the new documents suggest that ghostwriting journal articles is a standard practice for many pharmaceutical companies, raising concerns that doctors might have their prescribing habits influenced by articles that were actually produced as part of corporate marketing campaigns.

"The filter is missing when the reader does not know that the germ of an article came from the manufacturer," said attorney James Szaller, representing many of the plaintiffs.

Medical journal publisher Elsevier has announced an investigation into ghostwriting practices, and some journals have started requiring full disclosure of each author's role in producing a paper, as well as any conflicts of interest. Many journals, however, do not require this disclosure, and the extent of ghostwriting practices remains unknown.

"It's almost like steroids and baseball," said Joseph S. Ross, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "You don't know who was using and who wasn't; you don't know which articles are tainted and which aren't."