The spooky reality behind drug-related "news"
Tricks of the trade...
..."The long and short of the process is this: A drug maker funnels a highly-educated ghostwriter only the most flattering evidence - much of it no doubt doctored (no pun intended) - regarding a certain patent medicine's miraculous effectiveness and utter lack of side effects. Instead of being immediately used as toilet paper, this information is then skillfully crafted by the highly paid and totally amoral writer into a slick article that's persuasive, thorough, and seemingly credible enough to gull a reputable (or maybe not-so-reputable) M.D. into signing his name to it...
...as much as half of the peer-reviewed literature on any given drug is likely nothing more than ghostwritten "infomercials" with a gullible (or morally sketchy) doctor's byline on it..."
Chris GuptaEvery once in a while, I come across a story from an obscure (or foreign) news outlet that throws even jaded old me for a loop. And recently, a story from the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) on "ghostwriters" has done just that...
Broadly defined, the term "ghostwriter" refers to anyone who writes something that bears someone else's name when printed. And according to the CBC online news, it turns out that the pharmaceutical giants are a major employer of these ghostwriters to write articles praising their drugs-while POSING AS DOCTORS!
Now, lest you think there's anything shady going on, these articles are reviewed and given blessing by real MDs. The fact that these doctors are then paid big bucks by pharmaceutical industry fat cats for allowing themselves to be billed as the authors shouldn't concern anyone...
Perfectly on the up and up, right?
As if this isn't enough of an ethical quagmire, consider this: Since the articles aren't even penned by the endorsing doctors, they likely NEVER SEE all the evidence - especially the negative findings - on the drugs in question before signing their names to the finished pieces!
Where does this "unbiased" evidence come from in the first place? You guessed it: The completely objective and selfless drug companies themselves...
The long and short of the process is this: A drug maker funnels a highly-educated ghostwriter only the most flattering evidence - much of it no doubt doctored (no pun intended) - regarding a certain patent medicine's miraculous effectiveness and utter lack of side effects. Instead of being immediately used as toilet paper, this information is then skillfully crafted by the highly paid and totally amoral writer into a slick article that's persuasive, thorough, and seemingly credible enough to gull a reputable (or maybe not-so-reputable) M.D. into signing his name to it.
The scary part is that these articles then find their way into some of the biggest and most respected peer-reviewed journals out there - like the Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal. And how's this for warped ethics: The ghostwriter gets a huge cash bonus if the piece ends up appearing in one of these high-profile sources!
According to CBC's sources, as much as half of the peer-reviewed literature on any given drug is likely nothing more than ghostwritten "infomercials" with a gullible (or morally sketchy) doctor's byline on it...
How's that make you feel about filling a prescription?
Your real life ghost buster,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
posted by Chris Gupta on Thursday October 9 2003
updated on Saturday September 24 2005URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/10/09/the_spooky_reality_behind_drugrelated_news.htm
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