Docs haunted by ghost-written studies
Lie down with dogs, you're going to get fleas.
Evidently not everyone has heard that old saying—or they don't care. Whatever the case may be, some docs are going to have their reputations sullied because of their connections to some dubious Big Pharma research practices. Good. They deserve it.
Documents coming out of the lawsuits from the Vioxx scandal are exposing the underbelly of what is evidently a common, tawdry practice in mainstream medicine today. Merck has been caught red-handed engaging in the ghostwriting of drug studies. Apparently they hunt for a big-name doc to put his name on the study after it's written—hardly making the doctor a roll-up-your-sleeves participant.
While Merck conceded that they do outsource the actual writing of those medical reports, they insist the doctors do more than just ink their name on the finished product.
I know when you have egg on your face, you'll say and do anything to wipe it off. But it's not as if this information was pulled out of thin air. It's right there in black and white in their own documents, the smoking gun of truth. There was documentation that showed multiple cases out of 96 journal publications where there's a big question mark as to how much input the doctor actually had.
One case that was cited concerned a study showing Vioxx as a possible foil to Alzheimer's progression. The draft had on it "External author?" clearly showing that there was no specific doctor knee-deep in the research trenches.
Doctors whose inked names are being exposed in this latest scandal are denying any culpability, wrong-doing, or even evidence of penning their name to a ghostwritten document. You bet they're back-pedaling. These docs took an oath to protect their patients best interests but have fallen well short of their word.
