Malpractice by Drug Industry
Submitted by Dan Gillmor on Tue, 12/13/2005 - 12:08pm.
Today's Wall Street Journal has a long story entitled At Medical Journals, Writers Paid by Industry Play Big Role. Quotes:
Many of the articles that appear in scientific journals under the bylines of prominent academics are actually written by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies. These seemingly objective articles, which doctors around the world use to guide their care of patients, are often part of a marketing campaign by companies to promote a product or play up the condition it treats.
Now questions about the practice are mounting as medical journals face unprecedented scrutiny of their role as gatekeeper for scientific information. Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine admitted that a 2000 article it published highlighting the advantages of Merck & Co.'s Vioxx painkiller omitted information about heart attacks among patients taking the drug. The journal has said the deletions were made by someone working from a Merck computer. Merck says the heart attacks happened after the study's cutoff date and it did nothing wrong.
If the medical journals want to be taken seriously in the future, they'll have to do something about this sleazy behavior. If they don't, let's hope that new publications arise to offer honest medical journalism.
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