Pharmaceutical giant Wyeth just can’t catch a break. Before being swallowed by larger-giant Pfizer, the company will need to brace for a major PR thumping: A federal judge has ordered the company to release documents relating to its alleged practice of ghostwriting medical articles.
In December 2008, the New York Times reported that Wyeth played a suspiciously large role in preparing articles that cast its hormone replacement therapy PremPro in a favourable light. The articles, published in medical journals, contrast with the findings from major studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health, which found that (pdf) women who have taken PremPro have an increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, heart attack and blood clots in the legs and lungs.
Based on internal corporate documents given to pharma-fighter Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) by a lawyer who had sued the company, the Times concluded that Wyeth executives “came up with ideas for medical journal articles, titled them, drafted outlines, paid writers to draft the manuscripts, recruited academic authors and identified publications to run the articles”.
The Wyeth representative “acknowledged the articles are part of a marketing effort”, but that they are also “fair, balanced and scientific and that no one has ever shown that they are inaccurate” (ChicagoTribune).
Last year Grassley subpoenaed the company for all documents concerning payments for ghostwriting. He received information on about 40 journal articles, but Wyeth obtained an order of confidentiality so the documents never left the court room. But in June the ghostwriting busting team got some heavy hitters — medical journal PLoS Medicine filed a motion on 11 June to a federal court to make the documents public, and the New York Times Company jumped on board six days later.
Public Justice, the law firm representing PLoS Medicine, motioned that (pdf) Wyeth’s confidentiality order “does not pose a legally cognizable barrier to public access,” as “it is difficult to imagine how materials evidencing ‘ghostwriting practices’, which are clearly not trade secrets, could possibly contain legitimately confidential information”.
The judge agreed, and ordered that the ghostwriting documents no longer be designated confidential as of 31 July.