Hi Fellow Coco-Nut…
I recently came across a lengthy article that is a slap in the face to all the blah-blah that drug companies and Big Pharma uses to sell their products to the unsuspecting public. For years we’ve been sold a bill of goods that is nothing more than lies and deception. Rather than me rant on and on about it, read the article below…
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“It can be proven that most claimed research findings are false,” says Dr. John Ioannidis of the Tufts-New England Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston. In a paper published in the journal PLoS Medicine, Dr Ioannidis explains that there is an increasing concern in the scientific community that most current published research findings are false. Study outcomes are influenced by a number of factors, including researchers’ bias, financial interests, sponsors’ interests, limited sample sizes, poor study design, statistical manipulations, and just plain old greed.
“Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true,” says Ioannidia. “For many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”1 For most of the past several decades medical investigators have skewed research toward condemning saturated fat and cholesterol because that was the prevailing bias. Although now enough accurate research has been done to show that eating saturated fat and cholesterol do not promote heart disease, stroke, or diabetes, bias keeps the lipid hypothesis alive.
The lipid hypothesis was born primarily though the work of Dr. Ancel Keys, who published a study showing that as fat consumption increases, so do heart disease deaths. He created a graph showing the data from six countries. This graph clearly showed that those countries that ate little fat had low heart disease death rates and those that ate the most fat had the highest death rates. The graph he created showed a straight line relationship between fat consumption and heart disease deaths. In 1970 he refined his hypothesis using seven countries to show a similar relationship between saturated fat and heart disease. His belief was that dietary saturated fat was the cause of heart disease. His graphs convinced many in the medical community, and the lipid hypothesis became the prevailing belief for the next several decades. Much research was published in an effort to further prove this hypothesis.
The problem with Dr. Keys’ original work was that it was all fabricated. He had data from some 20 countries he could have used, yet he carefully selected only those countries that neatly fit his hypothesis. The rest of the data was ignored as if it didn’t exist. If Keys had used all the data available to him when he created his graph, the relationship between dietary fat and heart disease would have vanished.
Decades of medical and nutritional research have been tainted due to bias based on faulty science. While more accurate studies are being published in regards to the effect of dietary fat on heart disease and other conditions, a strong financial interest exists that struggles to keep alive false theories. Pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars selling cholesterol-lowering drugs. The latest studies are showing that total blood cholesterol is inconsequential and does not affect heart disease; cholesterol levels are more of a consequence of heredity rather than diet. To counter these facts, the pharmaceutical industry has sponsored a multitude of studies to justify the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs. As a consequence, the medical literature is filled with conflicting studies in regard to diet, nutrition, and cholesterol.
The pharmaceutical industry sponsors a vast amount of research. Researchers know that if they publish information uncomplimentary to their sponsor, their funding will be cut off and their careers could be in jeopardy. Therefore, there is tremendous pressure placed on the researchers to produce favorable results. Even if researchers are funded by private or government agencies, if they publish studies critical of drug companies’ interests they are often targeted for attack.
Drug companies keep hit lists of those who criticize them. A recent news story tells about such lists found on company emails that were leaked to the public. The pharmaceutical giant Merck identified certain doctors who had criticized the painkiller Vioxx, a dangerous and now-withdrawn drug that the company produced. Company emails described ways to “neutralize” or “discredit” these doctors.
One of the methods they use to discredit the research of the doctors on their hit lists is to fund research to counteract their claims. A good example of this is the case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield.2 Dr. Wakefield, a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in the UK, was one of the original researchers who discovered the link between autism and childhood vaccinations. The study that landed him in hot water was published in the prestigious medical journal the Lancet, in February 1998. In this article he only suggested the possible connection between autism and vaccinations. But the article caused vaccination sales in the UK to decline dramatically. In retaliation, the pharmaceutical industry hired researchers to publish studies discrediting Wakefield’s work and to demonstrate that there is no link between autism and vaccinations. Several studies were published, and the media (no doubt prodded by the drug industry) loudly proclaimed all is well, there is no fear, vaccinations do not cause autism. However, it was later discovered, without any media fanfare, that the lead author of some of these studies had fabricated the data. He may not have even written the studies he is credited (or discredited) for writing. It is likely that the drug company paid a ghostwriter to write the articles and all he did was sign his name to them. Medical ghostwriting is big business and a highly profitable one for the drug companies. It is also a very unethical practice as well because it advertises alleged benefits of drugs while hiding adverse side effects.
The media are continually reporting adverse reactions to newly approved drugs, many of which are pulled from store shelves as complaints pile up and lawsuits ensue. Remember the Phen-fen fiasco or the Baycol blunder? These FDA-approved drugs caused many deaths and crippled others before being pulled from the market. Phen-fen, which was prescribed as an aid in weight loss, caused permanent heart and lung damage. Baycol, a cholesterol-lowering statin drug, caused breakdown of muscle tissue resulting in kidney and heart failure. Interestingly, most of these “side effects” were known before they were approved by the FDA, but were considered only “minor” nuisances because the drug companies downplayed or even suppressed this information during the approval process.
Studies submitted to the FDA are typically conducted by or funded by the drug manufacturer, who obviously has a heavy financial interest. These and subsequent studies, however, are not necessarily accurate or factual. Once a drug is approved, additional studies promoting the effectiveness of the drug are required to entice doctors to prescribe it and reporters to write glowing articles about it to convince the public and create demand for the product.
Unfortunately, many of these drugs don’t perform as well as they are touted or carry health risks that far outweigh any potential benefit. To sidestep this problem the drug companies engage in the practice of medical ghostwriting. Medical ghostwriting is the production of phony medical articles based on biased research to promote the use of drugs and vaccines.
Peer-reviewed articles published in medical journals are the gold standard when it comes to scientific reports. Your doctor relies on them when making decisions affecting your health. Medical ghostwriting is scary because your doctor may be basing his advice to you on marketing propaganda rather than sound science. This ultimately may be disastrous to your health, just as Phen-fen, Baycol, and Vioxx were for thousands of others.
Drug companies hire people with scientific backgrounds, often with PhDs, to stay in the shadows and crank out glowing reports for their products. The drug companies then pay doctors to put their names on the studies as the authors. Many doctors are more than willing to do this for the money and prestige, as well as to advance their careers.
Medical ghostwriters are given an outline from the drug companies telling them what to write and what data to use. Negative data is not provided. The purpose of the article is to make the study sound as positive as possible to encourage favorable media publicity and encourage doctors to prescribe the drug. Adverse side effects are often completely ignored.
Medical ghostwriters typically make over $100,000 a year. Drug companies may pay as much as $20,000 for a single article that makes its way into a prestigious medical journal like the Lancet, British Medical Journal, or the New England Journal of Medicine.
The drug companies pay doctors and university professors who have no connection with the study to sign their names as the authors of the article. Some of these “authors” may not have even read the studies they supposedly have written. Drug companies prefer high-profile authors: the higher the profile, the greater the credibility for the article. This explains why some doctors can be listed as authors or coauthors to a dozen or more studies a year. In reality, he or she may not have done any actual work on the articles or the studies.
“What appear to be scientific articles are really infomercials,” says Dr. David Healy of Cardiff University School of Medicine, Wales. Unfortunately, universities get entangled with the drug companies as well. Drug companies fund research. Universities thrive on the prestige and money generated from this research.
Consequently, researchers are pressured to produce favorable results and minimize unfavorable results. The consequences of publishing the facts, regardless of the sponsor, can have drastic repercussions. Dr. Healy lost his position at the University of Toronto after he criticized the drug company Eli Lilly for suppressing evidence that its drug Prozac leads to increased deaths from suicide.
Dr. Healy is a high-profile researcher with 110 peer-reviewed papers and 13 books to his credit. For this reason, he is a prime candidate as an author for ghostwritten studies. He was approached by one company to write an article based on his previous studies, which he was willing to do. “To my big surprise,” says Healy, “I had an e-mail shortly afterwards.” It stated: “In order to reduce your workload, we have had our ghostwriters produce a first draft based on your published work. I attach it here.”
Healy wasn’t comfortable with the glowing review of the drug, so he crafted his own article. The drug company wrote back and said he’d missed something key. In the end, the drug company put someone else’s name on the article.
Healy is spooked by the deception. He says it goes beyond being misleading – it can be dangerous. He’s seen a lot of articles on drugs, like anti-depressants, that don’t mention serious problems. “People and children, for instance, that have been put on these drugs, actually committing suicide or becoming suicidal. But the finished articles actually don’t reflect this at all.”
Essentially all drug companies hire medical ghostwriters to produce favorable journal articles on their products. Healy has seen internal drug company documents in which lists of scientific papers were written up, ready to go. The only things missing were the names of high-profile doctors to be listed as the authors. This is routine practice in the pharmaceutical industry. Healy estimates that 50 percent of the drug studies published in medical journals are ghostwritten. You can’t tell which ones are legitimate and which are not. Although authors must declare if they have any competing interests that would influence their results, doctors who sign their names to ghostwritten articles do not reveal their relationship with the drug company, so they appear as impartial researchers.
Getting doctors to fess up to sticking their names on papers written by ghostwriters is tricky business. When one high-profile author was approached about the authorship of an article, at first he admitted he “couldn’t remember who wrote the paper” that had his name on it. As the interview progressed he became increasingly uncomfortable with the line of questioning and said the drug company “might have” written the first draft. By the end of the interview he suddenly remembered that he’d written every word of it.
Medical journal editors say they’re trying to address the problem by weeding out planted studies, but it is not an easy task because each author must be contacted and questioned. When a study is submitted to medical journals, everyone who has had anything to do with the article is listed – like a film credit. As many as a dozen coauthors could be listed. John Hoey, the editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, says, “We have no way of checking. We barely have the resources to do what we’re doing, let alone whether so-and-so is telling us honestly what they did.”
When you go to the doctor and he prescribes a medication, are you getting one that is the best for your condition with the least risk, or are you getting something that has the most favorable write-up in the latest medical journal? The statin drug Baycol that caused many to have kidney and heart failure was favorably viewed as a safe treatment of high cholesterol, which, by the way, is a benign condition for most people.
When a medical ghostwriter (who was interviewed on condition of anonymity) was asked if he had any concerns about what he was doing, he stated he didn’t feel any ownership for the articles. He was just doing a job. It was the drug company’s responsibility. “As long as I do my job well, it’s not up to me to decide how the drug is positioned” he says. “I’m just following the information I’m being given. The way I look at it, if doctors that have their name on it, that’s their responsibility, not mine.”3
Keep in mind that just because a study says a certain drug is effective or safe, it isn’t necessarily so. As it looks now, the situation isn’t going to change anytime soon. The practice of medical ghostwriting isn’t about to give up the ghost. Drug companies will continue to influence researchers and research institutions. Personal preferences and biases are still going to creep into studies.
Does that mean we cannot trust any of the research being published in medical journals? No, it means that you need to be very cautious about which journal articles you believe and which ones to take with a grain of salt. ■
References
1. John Ioannidis, Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLoS Medicine.
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.
2. Joseph Mercola, Why Medical Authorities Went to Such Extremes to Silence Dr. Andrew Wakefield. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/10/wakefield-interview.aspx.
3. Erica Johnson, Medical Ghostwriting, CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/news/.
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