Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19272

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

Mitka M
Ghost Busting
JAMA 2010 Oct 13; 305:(8):743-844
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/304/14/1546.2.extract

Abstract:

Senate Finance Committee leaders have responded to complaints by the chair of the American Heart Association’s (AHA’s) Scientific Publishing Committee that they had unfairly singled out the AHA’s journal, Circulation, for publishing a ghostwritten article (Haffner SM et al. Circulation. 2002;106⁶:679-684). The 2002 article touted the benefits of rosiglitazone for lowering levels of certain biomarkers for cardiovascular risk in patients with type 2 diabetes.

An article about rosiglitazone ghostwritten on behalf of its manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, appeared in the journal Circulation, said leaders of the Senate Finance Committee.

Initially, Sen Max Baucus (D, Mont), Finance Committee chairman, and ranking member Sen Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) warned Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, MD, in a July 12 letter that rosiglitazone was part of a ghostwriting program conducted by the drug’s manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, and cited as evidence a paper that ultimately appeared in Circulation whose working …