DECEMBER 8. The Observer (UK) has just published a blockbuster story on medical-journal fraud. (�Pharmaceutical Giants Hire Ghostwriters To Produce Articles---Then put Doctors� Names On Them,� by Antony Barnett---12/7)
The piece starts out this way: �Hundreds of articles in medical journals claiming to be written by academics or doctors have been penned by ghostwriters in the pay of drug companies��
From what I can glean---and the Observer piece is not crystal clear on this point---these fake articles are not reports of actual drug studies carried out on volunteers; rather, they are what are called review articles, which summarize collections of past studies on a particular drug and offer an assessment of the usefulness of the drug.
Review articles can wield enormous influence over doctors who read medical journals. These pieces are a fast way to find out �how good a drug is.�
Now, these ghostwriters�they are in the employ of private agencies that specialize in this kind of fraud.
The articles appear to be written by doctors. The doctors are paid well to lend their names.
But the agency that hires the ghostwriter is itself paid by a drug company, and the company makes the drug that is being primped up and fluffed up and assessed positively in the review article.
The most prestigious medical journals are admitting that they are being defrauded and tricked. It�s all a new revelation to them.
Here is an example of the fraud. Last February, the New England Journal of Medicine retracted an article published the year before. The stated authors were �doctors from the Imperial College in London and the National Heart Institute [in England, who were writing about] treating a type of heart problem.�
Turns out that a few of the listed authors �had little or nothing to do with the research.�
One of these authors, Dr. Hubert Seggeweiss, phoned the Journal and said �he had never seen any version of the paper.�
Last February, the Journal of Alimentary Pharmacology published an article that secretly �involved� a medical writer working for the drug house, AstraZeneca, and the drug that was reviewed, Omeprazole, was, of course, made by AstraZeneca. The Journal states it did not know this medical writer was behind the article.
Susanna Rees, �an editorial assistant with a medical writing agency,� broke the silence on this widespread scam when she posted a letter on the British Medical Journal website:
�Medical writing agencies go to great lengths to disguise the fact that the papers they ghostwrite and submit to journals and conferences are ghostwritten on behalf of pharmaceutical companies and not by the named authors��
You get the idea.
The biggest crime is broadcasting a slanted appraisal of a drug.
And if that drug did not need lies to sustain its reputation, why bother at all?
In other words, this falsification in journals is so widespread because THE DRUGS ARE REALLY TOXIC AND INEFFECTIVE.
The Observer article does not mention this. But it is the bottom line.
If you needed further evidence about the criminal minds that inhabit drug companies, this is it.
The journals that are being hoodwinked are taking the basic position: �Well, a few years ago we discovered that many authors of our articles were in the pay of drug companies and that this fact was not being disclosed---so we stopped all that secrecy. Now, all the whores, uh, researchers are disclosing their connection to pharmaceutical houses. So this has forced the drug makers to find an even more insidious strategy. Using ghostwriters and writing agencies and paying doctors to put their names on the articles when those doctors had little or nothing to do with the work��
I have to say this stance by the journals is more than a little disingenuous. OF COURSE, in the earlier scandal, they knew these researchers were being paid to do research by the drug companies. Who else was paying them? The drug companies were DOING THE STUDIES ON THEIR OWN NEW DRUGS. And now, with all this scandal about ghostwriting appearing above the surface, the journals, once again, affect deep shock and consternation.
Look, if you want to guarantee the authenticity of an article you publish, and you already know you are dealing with crooks (the drug companies), then you very carefully check out the authorship of the article.
Unless you want to keep your head in the sand, because the very existence of your journal depends on pharmaceutical money and pharmaceutical ads.
Isn�t this the dance that�s really going on?
The journals won�t come right out and say they are tools of the drug companies.
The journals keep making faces of ethical consternation when these insane scandals break, as if they were completely in the dark.
The doctors whose names are being put on these fake articles---the doctors stay silent and pretend they know nothing.
One hand keeps washing the other.
The affectation of shock when crimes are revealed is just part of the stage play.
I think the journals should get over themselves and start printing photos of Britney and other semi-nude stars. You know, centerfolds. Then JAMA and NEJM could distribute their issues in 7 11s and supermarkets. The articles would function as deep background no one believes or cares about.
In a sane world, this latest scandal, piled on top of earlier revelations of fraud, would sink the major medical journals. Close them down. Look at the uproar over the Jayson Blair episode at The New York Times. That was just one reporter lying. Here we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of assessments of medicines and treatments that are reconstructed to avoid the truth.
It reminds me of an edition of a French or British monarchy that starts to stink from the feet, and after years and years the rot spreads upward through the torso and limbs to the skull---the whole edifice stands there like one vast sandcastle tailed with old, old foul seaweed, and everyone waits, transfixed, for the collapse.
JON RAPPOPORT
www.nomorefakenews.com
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