Drug firms accused over medical articles

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SSRI-Research@

Fri, 15 Oct 2004 19:39:18 -0400

 

 

Subject:[sSRI-Research] Dr. David Healy tells MPs that half the

articles appearing in medical journals are " ghost written " by

pharmaceutical companies

 

The 10th paragraph states: " Prof Healy said {of Paxil} that he had

seen suicidal tendencies labelled as " nausea " or " emotionally labile " ,

and aggressive behaviour verging on homicidal in children, was simply

described as " hostile " .

 

 

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ll & siteid=P082 & headline==drug-firms--accused-over-medical-articles-name_page.htm\

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Drug firms accused over medical articles

 

Oct 15 2004

 

Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail

 

 

HALF the articles appearing in medical journals about new drugs are

" ghost written " by the pharmaceutical companies which produce them, a

Welsh expert told MPs yesterday.

 

The Commons Health Committee heard that articles in journals such as

The Lancet would appear under the names of distinguished doctors and

academics, even though the supposed " authors " had not seen the raw

scientific data behind them.

 

In some cases this could mean data which raises doubts about a drug's

safety and efficacy are " kept secret " .

 

Giving evidence to the committee, Professor David Healy, of the Wales

College of Medicine, said that the nominal authors would even be paid

as if they had written the articles themselves - a tactic used by

drugs companies to " engineer " a scientific consensus in favour of

their products.

 

Prof Healy, a professor of psychological medicine who has extensively

researched the controversial anti-depressant Seroxat, said,

" Increasingly the articles written in the British Medical Journal and

The Lancet will not only be ghost written, but they will not represent

the raw data they purport to represent.

 

" They [drug companies] approach authors to have their names put on

articles. Those authors may not have even seen the data they put their

names to.

 

" They may be the most distinguished authors from the most prestigious

universities. "

 

He said the effect was to produce a " distorted picture of what the

data does look like " , and was associated with a failure to report

important safety issues.

 

He also told the committee, which is investigating the impact of

companies on the NHS, that when clinical trials on drugs produced

adverse side effects, the companies would use " euphemisms " to

described them.

 

Prof Healy said that he had seen suicidal tendencies labelled as

" nausea " or " emotionally labile " , and aggressive behaviour verging on

homicidal in children, was simply described as " hostile " .

 

Leading figures in the medical profession can earn large sums from the

drugs companies by giving talks on their products, the committee also

heard yesterday.

 

Dr Peter Wilmshurst, a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Shrewsbury

Hospital, said the pharmaceutical industry is willing to pay up to

£5,000 for a one-hour talk with doctors who may well be unaware that

the speaker was in the pay of the company.

 

He said, " People don't always declare their conflicts of interest. In

the majority of cases they are not declared. Where they are, the

actual sums are not declared.

 

" It is the only way that academics can achieve the salaries their NHS

colleagues get from private practice. "

 

Dr Wilmshurst said that in the 1980s he had been offered a bribe

equivalent to two years' salary not to publish research on the side

effects of a new heart drug which ran " counter to the interests " of

the company producing it.

 

Although he refused, he said other doctors who had carried out similar

research had been persuaded not to publish their findings.

 

The company concerned had also supplied forged documents to regulators

in the Netherlands, he claimed.

 

A spokeswoman for the British Medical Journal said, " The BMJ asks

authors - notably the guarantor of the article - to state that they

accept full responsibility for the conduct of the study, had access to

the data, and controlled the decision to publish.

 

" We also publish contributorship statements for each piece of

research, which show exactly what each contributor has done -

including the data analysis. "

 

The Lancet was last night unavailable for comment.