Pharma Service Announcements
Like ghostwriting, the origins of pharma's unbranded advertising are disguised and they look legit. But when TV, radio and web messages push "awareness" of diseases like ADHD, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) or Excessive Sleepiness (ES), be suspicious. Real diseases aren't given initials for quick recall and easy reference. Nor do they come with snappy self-quizzes and pretty patient models. Unbranded messages also pimp the PSA (public service announcement) money that media outlets have for actual public issues.
National "Interests of Health
The billions of research dollars the taxpayer-supported National Institutes of Health (NIH) allocates each year are supposed to benefit the public and be free from pharma influence. So why was a researcher stripped of an NIH grant because of hidden pharma ties, allowed to resume NIH funding at a new university? Psychiatrist Charles Nemeroff not only qualified for NIH funds when he surfaced at the University of Miami last year, he sits on the actual NIH committees which consider other researchers 'grants, reports Chronicle of Higher Education. A fox guarding the hen, or pork house.
Continuing Marketing Education
Pharma-subsidized Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses are a bonanza for pharma since doctors need the "credits" to keep their licenses. But what are they learning? A recent "course" offered by Medscape titled Quadrivalent HPV Vaccine May Be Effective in Women 24 to 45 Years Old told participants after taking the course, they would be able to "specify the currently recommended age range" for the vaccine. Especially if they could read the title! Another course offered by the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine tells participates to "lobby your legislators" for pharma-related Medicare funding. No wonder, Congress recently investigated the billion dollar industry CME industry for illegal marketing. Too bad it couldn't investigate for stupidity.
Ghostwriting and Nolo Retracto
Ghostwriting -- papers written by medical marketing writers with doctors only posing as authors -- was rampant until 2008 Congressional investigations. But even though it's now prohibited, few journals have retracted ghostwritten articles which sold Vioxx, Fen Phen, Prempro and probably Avandia. Asked about the ghostwritten papers "by" Lila Nachtigall, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Deborah Bohren, vice president for public affairs at New York University's Langone Medical Center said, "If we had received a complaint, we would have investigated." A Congressional investigation doesn't qualify as a complaint?
Crooked Books and Slanted Messages
First it was called the first completely ghostwritten book. Then it was called a completely pharma approved book. Either way, the 1999 textbook, Recognition and Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: A Psychopharmacology Handbook for Primary Care, was funded by an "unrestricted educational grant" from drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to Scientific Therapeutics Information according to its own preface. Nor were its authors strangers to GSK. Alan Schatzberg is on GSK's speakers bureau and Charles Nemeroff was investigated by Congress for undeclared GSK income. Did the authors write the book themselves or was it ghostwritten by freelancers at Scientific Therapeutics Information (the group that marketed Vioxx?) Does it matter?
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