U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson ordered the papers unsealed Friday at the request of a medical journal and The New York Times. Plaintiffs attorneys presented the papers earlier at trial to show Wyeth routinely hired medical-writing firms to ghostwrite articles that appeared in seemingly objective medical journals but included only the name of a scientific researcher as the author.
The ruling came in a case that involves about 8,000 lawsuits that have been combined before Wilson. The lawsuits focus on whether Wyeth hormone therapy drugs Prempro and Premarin, used to treat symptoms of menopause, have caused breast cancer in some women.
The New Jersey drugmaker already had turned over the documents, which it says concern about 40 articles in medical journals and other publications, to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley sought them last year without a subpoena as part of a congressional investigation into drug-industry influence on doctors.
1 comment:
Thank you for posting that one. I interviewed Dr. Erika Schwartz who has been on several TV shows, interviewed by Dr. Oz, etc. on bio identical hormones and we discussed where's the study information comparing bio identical FDA approved drugs to Premarin and I did a follow up and put the hat tip back to your post here.
I wonder how many more ghostwriters are going to surface as transparency grows all around us:)
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