Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18346

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: Electronic Source

Silverman E
A Medical Journal And A 'Slick' Paper About Niaspan
Pharmalot 2010 July 7
http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/07/a-medical-journal-and-a-slick-paper-about-niaspan/

Full text:

Last week, the American Journal of Cardiology published a paper that carried a curious title: “Linguistic Analysis of In-Office Dialogue Among Cardiologists, Primary Care Physicians, and Patients With Mixed Dyslipidemia.” In short, this examined the discussions between 24 doctors – 12 cardiologists and 12 primary care physicians – and 45 patients who were diagnosed with high cholsterol. The subject of their chat? Treatment with Niaspan, a drug sold by Abbott Labs.
The paper found docs didn’t do well discussing the problem and their patients are poor listeners. And the study made an interesting observation – that only one doc noted Niaspan will improve HDL and offer protection from heart blockages or development of plaque in the arteries. However, as CardioBrief pointed out, there is no evidence Niaspan does such things. Morever, the paper failed to discuss other treatments or diet and exercise, prompting the impression this was really an Abbott marketing study.
The paper, in fact, was funded by Abbott. One of the authors, Alan Brown of Midwest Heart Specialists, has a track record of contributing to AJC supplments and to CME programs, CardioBrief notes. Another author, Corey Eagan, works at MBS/Vox, which is part of the CommonHealth marketing company, which has worked on Niaspan (see here).
So we asked William Roberts, the AJC editor and the executive director of the Baylor Cardiovascular Institute of Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, about the decision to publish this paper. “I thought this was a plus or minus article to be honest. By that I mean borderline. It was gutsy to be published, to be frank with you. But this sort of thing (cholesterol lowering discussions with patients) comes up in physician all the time,” he tells us.
“The idea that it’s really an Abbott marketing study for niaspan, I think that’s a little strong…I’m not really interested in knowing the marketing literature of every pharmaceutical company, but my own view is the American people are not treated adequately with the lipid-lowering drugs that we have,” he continues. “…I’m in favor of articles that stimulate discussion of more lipid-lowering drugs or patients to take them…I thought this was an article in a way that had a purpose, a function…”
However, Roberts does acknowledge flaws. “It’s not the ideal authorship, by any means…If you look at the 650 articles published in the AJC each year, this is an exception….Is the quality diluted or contaminated if there is a pharmaceutical person as an author on the manuscript? You can debate that a good while…If i had to do it over again, I certainly woudn’t have allowed a single drug to be mentioned…In retrospect, discussion or mention of one drug and not a whole bunch of them is a little slick.”
Hats Off To Larry