N.J. pharmaceutical company ordered to unseal thousands of ghostwriting documents

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/morris_county_pharmaceutical_o.html


A federal judge has ordered the unsealing of thousands of pages of documents pertaining to the ghostwriting practices of Madison, N.J.-based Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which is being sued over hormone replacement drugs.

U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson ordered the papers unsealed Friday at the request of a medical journal and The New York Times. Plaintiffs attorneys presented the papers earlier at trial to show Wyeth routinely hired medical-writing firms to ghostwrite articles that appeared in seemingly objective medical journals but included only the name of a scientific researcher as the author.

The ruling came in a case that involves about 8,000 lawsuits that have been combined before Wilson. The lawsuits focus on whether Wyeth hormone therapy drugs Prempro and Premarin, used to treat symptoms of menopause, have caused breast cancer in some women.

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Plaintiffs say ghostwriting is when a drug company conjures up the concept for an article that will counteract criticism of a drug or embellish its benefits, hires a professional writing company to draft a manuscript conveying the company's message, retains a physician to sign off as the author and finds a publisher to unwittingly publish the work.
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they lie, cheat and steal us to death

they hire biologists to do research for them, giving them the results and answers they want in order to make policy they want.

nt

I was young and went through premature menepause..I had so many docs that tried to push that shit on me..and I refused to take it..I am so happy I chose to go through it all naturally...I was only 28 yrs old at the time..

I found my own way by eliminating salt and sodium..they were triggers for me for hot flashes..

But I went to so many doctors and they all pushed those medicines on me..and I was brow beaten by the docs to try them..but I did not stay on any of that crap for more than 1 month..and all the benefits i was told over and over again that i would get from taking them ..have all been proven false..and nothing but total bullshit..

Those meds do not help your heart..they do not save your bones..as proven now..

I just changed docs when the pressure increased for me to take those death and cancer pills..and patches.

I said ..no thanks..give them to your wife or your own daughters..I was not going to be anyone's guinea pig..

Many a dinner or event I had to run out of with hot flashes and ending up soaking wet...and many a night I could not sleep..and would awaken soaking wet ...but I lived through it..without all that crap poisioning my body.

I today and close to 60 and am happy with my decision not to take that poison!

In the academic world, this would be bye-bye reputation, bye-bye job.

Even tenured profs would be 'retired' early.

I don't even see anything unethical in theory.

Ghostwriting is common in the scientific community. It's still up to the review panel to decide scientific merit.