An Australian medical researcher claims Wyeth duped him into publishing a scientific paper that became part of its campaign to play down the dangers of its drugs for menopausal women,The Australian writes.
John Eden, an associate professor at the University of NSW and director of the Sydney Menopause Centre, tells the paper was shocked to learn a paper he published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology was one of more than 40 scientific articles Wyeth orchestrated to boost sales of its hormone-replacement drugs, such as Prempro.
Eden was recently cleared of an allegation that "ghostwriters" employed by Wyeth wrote his article, but he says that internal Wyeth documents obtained by The Australian show Wyeth misled him about its agenda and its behind-the-scenes role in his scientific paper.
In December 2008, the US Senate Finance Committee disclosed a probe into several researchers, including Eden, over ghostwritten articles by DesignWrite and allegedly paid for by Wyeth (see here). At the time, the paper, writes Eden refused to comment other than saying he stood by his article, which was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2003.
Court documents show that Wyeth paid DesignWrite to churn out more than 40 scientific papers on HRT drugs between 1997 and 2005, a period when evidence was emerging that the drugs significantly increased a woman's risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke, The Australian continues.
Eden tells the paper Wyeth suggested he write his article after inviting him to a company-sponsored symposium in New York in June 2000. At the time, Wyeth was preparing to launch a new pill containing the hormone progestin, and his research indicated progestin in high doses was beneficial to women with breast cancer.
The documents show a Wyeth marketing executive offered Eden the assistance of "knowledgeable and gifted writers" who could turn his research into a published paper. Wyeth came up with the title of the paper and DesignWrite paid a freelance science writer $3,000 to draft an 11-page "outline" that was sent him after being scrutinized by Wyeth's marketing department, The Australian writes.
Eden acknowledges he received editorial assistance in drafting and revising the paper but denies it was ghostwritten, and says the paper was based on his research and was controlled by him without any influence or payment to him from Wyeth. But he tells the paper he's angry that Wyeth had a hidden commercial agenda and was scrutiniing the article behind his back.
"If I had any idea, I would have said forget it," he tells The Australian, adding it was a "mistake" the paper failed to acknowledge Wyeth's assistance. The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology investigated Eden's paper after it was named in the Senate probe, but recently told him it was not ghostwritten and said no further action would be taken. A spokesman for Pfizer, which acquired Wyeth last year, denied the articles were ghostwritten, and that authors had full control over content, according to The Australian.
4 Comments
The DesignWrite proposal is an education in itself. It's been another contribution to my syllabus, and pre-med undergrads learn a lot from it.
Hat tip to Wyeth.
"Me thinks the lady doth protest too greatly. . ."
What -- exactly -- did Eden think the Wyeth "MARKETING EXECUTIVE" [emphasis supplied] was doing, when he caused the freelancer to send Eden that 11 page "outline"?
His version seems less than credible, on its face. He meets with a merketing executive -- executive gives him "outline" -- and he's surprised it had a marketing bend?
Did he read it?
Sorry -- no sympathy here.
नमस्ते
I once worked with DesignWrite and had a positive experience. The key with all of these medcom companies is that you have to be very clear up front what kind of work you want them to do. If you want a marketing spin, you get a marketing spin. In my case they did a straight-up scientific Powerpoint presentation for me for a scientific meeting. They got the slides got back to me well beforehand so that they could be edited.
On the other hand, if it isn't clear by now, it should be that publication plans come from and must be approved by Marketing. That should be a tip-off to anyone involved with publishing pharma data. The role of the medical writer in the pharmaceutical company used to be to write scientific papers. Many were seasoned medical monitors. Today, with the heavy influence from Marketing, the job of the company medical writer is mostly a pass-through function, i.e., they pass the marketing spin on to the ghostwriters and coordinate the preparation of the drafts. They don't even really edit anymore.
Companies keep only a skeleton crew of medical writers these days because of costs and the fact that they are not always in "publication mode". Hence more cost-efficient to contracgt the work out.
Thanks for the reflection, Vet. What I found striking in the DesignWrite proposal for prempro was that it itself was spun for spin. That is, the company presented as one of its goals to counter the concerns about links between HRT abd endometrial and breast cancer, even though there were at least strong signals, if not more (especially re: former) at this point.
So their own marketing was designed to appeal to marketing and suppressing risk information. Even viewed from the perspective of the time, I don't think "corrupt" is the wrong word.