On 30-Apr-05 Poses, Roy wrote:
> 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.
> [...]
> 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?
Fascinating!
The "real threat" has to be true! As one of the blogs you quote
put it:
http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2005/04/ghosts-busted.html
"an epidemic of mismanagement, conflicts of interests, dishonesty,
unethical behavior, and outright crime and corruption."
In fact, before I hit this one it was increasingly growing on
me that this activity must be getting pretty close to criminal,
as defined by law. It seems that a UK House of Commons Committee
has been considering the issue.
One of the blogs led me to ther Rx Communications website, which
declares that their services include writing Clinical Trial and
Study Reports:
http://www.rxcomms.com/livesite/ctr.asp
"Study and clinical trial reports
We at Rx pride ourselves on being able to solve problems for
our clients, such as the difficult question of how to get
those important clinical trial and study reports written.
With more than 50 medical writers with the relevant experience
and expertise, we are confident we can provide you with an
excellent service.
Using your statistical output, and your corporate template,
our writers will:
* highlight study objectives
* provide a clear explanation of how the critical features
of the study were chosen
* describe the study design and analytical methods in language
that eliminates ambiguity
* analyse the data
* compile a report acceptable to regulatory authorities
* compile narratives of any serious adverse events
As in every example of Rx work, rigorous quality checks will
be applied to ensure accuracy of content."
[I like "eliminates ambiguity"]
==========================================
Somewhat off-topic, but led into by the above, is a question
which has been increasingly puzzling me in recent years.
This concerns the obscureness of the names given to drugs by
their manufacturers. As an example, in the "Guardian" article
(the one which "names names") written by the same Dr. Adriane
Fugh-Berman as wrote the JGIM article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,,1464037,00.html
I read:
"It seemed to me that the article was intended to help
AstraZeneca lay the groundwork for a new drug, ximelagatran,
to compete with warfarin."
Can someone help me with the etymology of "ximelagatran", please?
Best wishes to all,
Ted.
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Date: 01-May-05 Time: 07:43:33
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