Aug 5, 2009 6:13 pm US/Eastern
Hormone Maker Paid Ghostwriters To Push Product
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS) ―
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Hormone therapy pills.
CBS
Some 26 scientific articles published in medical journals between 1998 and 2005 touted the benefits of hormone therapy and played down the risks. Now newly released court documents requested by the New York Times and the Public Library of Science show how ghostwriters paid by the maker of the hormones played a major role producing the work, CBS station KPIX-TV reported.
For decades doctors prescribed hormone therapy to women, basing their professional advice on scientific research. The published evidence at the time showed these pills would turn back the clock: keep a woman's heart healthy, her mind sharp and skin wrinkle free.
But that all changed in 2002, when a huge government study called the Women's Health Initiative found hormone therapy actually did more harm than good. The research showed how hormones boosted the risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease, stroke even dementia. A lot of women in the Bay Area were on hormones. Many stopped and the impact was immediate.
"We saw a 11 percent drop in breast cancer rates in the state in 2003, after the study results were disseminated and women stopped taking hormone therapy," said Tina Clark, an epidemiologist with the Northern California Cancer Center.
But what about those other studies touting the benefits? Court documents show how the maker of Premarin and Prempro paid a company to draft the manuscripts and then got top doctors to take all the credit.
"This is as bad as it gets when it comes to publishing," said Dr. Bill Anderick, a medical ethicist at CPMC.
"Not only are you defrauding the physicians who are reading this info but you are harming the patients in a very substantial way -- the patient who will be treated based on that inaccurate or inappropriate information this is wrong," said Dr. Anderick.
"Professionally I'm outraged, I'm absolutely outraged about the conflicts of interest in the medical reporting field," said Barbara Brenner, herself a breast cancer survivor.
"For every woman who has ever taken hormone therapy they're starting to say to themselves, was I put on this under snare and delusion, and did it create my breast cancer?" said Brenner.
According to the New York Times, the drug maker insists that the studies were all scientifically accurate and that it is common practice to hire writers to help researchers draft their manuscripts.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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