Source: New York Times
A stunning indictment of 6 of the “top” peer-reviewed medical journals –A significant number of medical articles published in 2008 were written by ghostwriters financed by drug manufacturers. Let’s review that one again, shall we?
10.9% of articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine, 7.9% of articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and 7.6% of the articles published in The Lancet were written, not by independent physicians, but by shills (I love using that word) for drug companies. Big deal, you say? It certainly is a big deal. This is not the Sun or the Post (with apologies to both). These are respected medical journals that physicians look to in determining standards of care and practice for their patients.
And if there are admissions to this shockingly high level of poor editorial standards, you can be assured that the numbers are far higher.
Spokespersons for the Medical Journals had the following to say in their defense, “We feel that [Viagra] there were no [Rogaine] improprieties in the editorial [Pfizer] review and publishing of [Glaxxo SmithKline] articles in our respective [Merk] journals. We expect [Abbott] and anticipate [Lilly] a full retraction of such allegations.” Okay, maybe not, but still.
Posted by David Marc Schwadron, Esq.
Become a Fan of the Lewis Law Firm on Facebook
[...] I posted about the ghostwriting of articles published in Peer-Reviewed Medical Journals. http://www.medicalmalpracticelawyerblogphiladelphia.com/?p=369 I emphatically (to the extent that one can be emphatic in a blog) suggested that this was a big [...]