Pharmaceutical ghostwriters promote dangerous drugs

New Jersey drug giant Wyeth Pharmaceuticals is under investigation for paying ghostwriters to produce articles favorable to its female hormone replacement therapy Prempro. (New York Times, Dec. 12, 2008)

Wyeth paid ghostwriters to write favorably about a drug linked to breast cancer.

Prempro medication is a combination of estrogen and progestin used to treat symptoms of menopause. In 2002, a federal study linked use of Prempro to breast cancer. In May 2003, the “American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology” published an article on Prempro that argued there was “no definitive evidence” that progestins cause breast cancer, and went further to assert that women who used hormones had a better chance of surviving cancer.

The article was prepared by Wyeth in conjunction with a professional medical writing firm, DesignWrite.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals reported earnings of up to $17.5 billion worldwide for the first nine months of 2008, and earned almost $3 billion from Prempro during the hormone therapy’s height in 2001. It is estimated that more than 126 million prescriptions were written for women for hormone replacement drugs—most of them for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ Prempro.

This is not the first case of pharmaceutical companies publishing ghostwritten articles in medical journals. Merck used professional medical writers to promote their painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn in 2004 after it was linked to heart problems. Wyeth had also paid writers to tout its Redux and Pomdimin diet pills, which were taken off the market in 1997 after being linked to heart and lung problems.

Other investigations have revealed that drug company executives themselves come up with ideas for medical journal articles, going so far as to title them, and even drafting outlines. They pay writers to compose the manuscripts, then recruit academic authors to identify journals to publish the articles. Meanwhile, journal editors and readers have no idea what role the drug companies play in the process. (New York Times)

Drug companies hire professional medical writers in hopes of influencing doctors to prescribe their drugs to patients. In reality, the articles published in journals function as advertisements rather than independent research. They do not rest on scientific observations, but rather marketing needs.

DesignWrite, the medical writing company used by Wyeth, asserts on its website that it offers “a comprehensive approach to product positioning, providing strategic marketing, scientific, and editorial support to meet individual challenges throughout a product’s life cycle.” Moreover, that its long experience in blending scientific and clinical issues with marketing needs allows us to develop successful science-based medical marketing programs.”

This is yet another example of how medical science takes a back seat to profits in the United States. Medicine and health care, like everything else under capitalism, are for-profit industries that throw out the needs of human beings for the sake of the bottom line.