I thought it might be useful to notify the members of this list about two recent examples of ghost-writing in the medical literature that appeared in the last two weeks, and maybe generate some comments.
One case was of a narrative review article on interactions with warfarin. The other was of the report of the ADVANTAGE trial of Vioxx.
In both cases, the articles were written by anonymous ghost-writers hired by pharmaceutical companies. The apparent intent of the first article was to emphasize the possible harms of warfarin to help future marketing efforts for an anti-coagulant meant to compete with warfarin. The apparent intent of having the second article ghost-written was to minimize the adverse effects of Vioxx.
The first case was initially revealed in an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and an accompanying editorial. Both are available on the web:
Ghost-writing seems to present a real threat to the integrity of the medical and health care literature, and hence to EBM. As the JGIM editorial put it, "Publishing biased literature is not simply 'getting the message out' for the pharmaceutical client of the medical education company. It injects bias and untruth into the scientific dialogue in order to enhance corporate profits." "How much is sullying the medical literature worth in market share?"
Any comments on this phenomenon or what to do about it?