Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18562

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

Mitka M
Grassley Boos Ghostwriting
JAMA 2010 Aug 11; 304:(6):628
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/304/6/628?etoc

Abstract:

Sen Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, is urging the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to incorporate stringent rules against ghostwriting in medical literature into its forthcoming updated disclosure guidelines.

Grassley’s recommendation came with the June 24 release of a committee minority staff report that found that the role of pharmaceutical companies in medical publications remains veiled or undisclosed (http://grassley.senate.gov/about/upload/Senator-Grassley-Report.pdf). The report also said the strengthening of journal authorship policies appears to have had only a small effect on ghostwriting and disclosure of industry financing of medical articles (such as hiring a third party to develop articles that cast a company’s products in a positive light).

In a letter to the NIH, Grassley urged the agency, when putting together its disclosure guidelines, to define the term “significant financial interest” to include pharmaceutical and device company financing and/or other material contribution . . .