Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13718
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: Journal Article
Cressey D.
Merck accused of disguising its role in research.
Nature 2008 Apr 17; 452:(7189):791
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080416/full/452791b.html
Abstract:
Drug company used ghost-writers for papers published on Vioxx trials.
International drug giant Merck stands accused this week of manipulating research papers on one of its products published in medical journals.
Thousands of documents relating to Merck’s withdrawn painkiller rofecoxib (Vioxx) were made available as part of a legal action. They were reviewed by medical researchers paid by the litigants in the trial, which ended in 2006, and seem to show Merck’s extensive involvement in ghost-writing and ‘guest authorship’ of research and review papers. The results of the analysis are published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
By omitting the names – or downgrading the involvement – of drug-industry writers, and adding the names of academics who were not substantially involved in a paper, the industry’s role in research may be concealed. And doctors may be misled over the independence of the work…
Keywords:
Publication Types:
News
MeSH Terms:
Authorship*
Clinical Trials as Topic/economics
Clinical Trials as Topic/ethics*
Clinical Trials as Topic/legislation & jurisprudence*
Drug Industry/economics
Drug Industry/ethics*
Drug Industry/legislation & jurisprudence*
Humans
Lactones/adverse effects*
Sulfones/adverse effects*
Substances:
Lactones
Sulfones
rofecoxib
