Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16231

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Hopkins Tanne J
Wyeth paid ghostwriters to draft articles promoting its hormones, PLoS Medicine and New York Times say
BMJ 2009 Aug 11; 339:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/339/aug11_1/b3288

Abstract:

The drug firm Wyeth has defended itself after court documents seemed to show that it paid a medical communications company to draft articles promoting the use of its hormone replacement therapies.

A news story in the New York Times (www.nytimes.com, 5 Aug, “Medical papers by ghostwriters pushed therapy”) said that the documents on ghostwriting were uncovered by lawyers suing Wyeth and were made public after a request in court from the medical journal PLoS Medicine and the New York Times.

The New York Times story said: “The court documents provide a detailed paper trail showing how 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. The documents suggest that the practice went well beyond the case of Wyeth and hormone therapy, involving numerous drugs . . .